Slowing Down to Pray and Follow God

Recently, I have been reading John Ortberg’s book The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People. One statement especially stood out to me: “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. Hurry can destroy our souls.”

Busyness can cause us to settle for mediocrity. Our lives can become cluttered, and we can forget important things and miss out on what God is putting in our lives. This has made me ask myself: If I were to eliminate hurry from my life, would I need to stop committing to everything I am interested in doing?

In this season, I am re-evaluating my ministry responsibilities. I need to take the major things I am working on before the Lord and ask Him how I should spend my time. Should I let go of some responsibilities and give them to other people? Should I focus on something else?

I know that the Lord is showing me that He cares about the condition of my heart. I like how Ortberg writes that “hurry is a disordered heart.”¹ It is easy to focus on superficial things, want to appear good in front of people, and try to achieve. However, what is more important is eliminating unnecessary things from our lives and making room for what really matters.

I feel that the Lord wants me to focus on being with Him and allow my life to become less cluttered with unimportant things. For me, in this season, that might mean letting go of one of my ministry leadership positions and handing it over to someone else.

I also agree with Ortberg that if we want to be able to love, we need to eliminate hurry. Love takes time. We also need time to be in God’s love so that we will have love for others.

I believe that in this season God wants me to quiet down and slow down. He wants me to reset my heart and heal my heart. I am learning not to be afraid that if I slow down, I will become irresponsible with my life. Instead, He wants to show me that He can do more through me when I am not in a hurry.

Slowing down also brings me back to prayer.

Prayer changes things. This is a very important daily reminder to me, especially in a season when I have recently gone through many disappointments. The story of Abraham that Ortberg shares reminds me that God is our friend. He listens to our prayers, and our prayers matter. The Lord wants to hear what we say. When we talk with Him about the things we see happening in life, He listens and considers our pleas.

I also like how Ortberg writes that prayer needs to be practiced. It is better to start with a small amount of time than not to pray at all.

Last year, I spent less time in prayer but more time meditating on the Word. Recently, I have realized that every time I pray, I can feel some of the wounds in my heart. Sometimes that makes it difficult for me to pray for a long period of time. Instead of forcing myself to pray for a long time at once, I want to begin breaking my prayer time into shorter periods throughout the day.

Ortberg quotes Walter Wink: “History belongs to the intercessors—those who believe and pray the future into being.”²

This statement especially speaks to me right now.

God has been speaking to me lately about what He wants to do in Taiwan—to raise more young Taiwanese people into the mission field. In the natural, this can look almost impossible. However, I believe He wants me to believe that we are to pray the future into being.

It is God’s heart to save and disciple nations. Taiwan is not too hard for God.

And this is not something we can accomplish simply through our own efforts. It will happen through people who pray, listen to God, obey Him, and partner with what He is doing.

This makes me realize even more how important it is for me to slow down, spend time in prayer, listen, and follow His lead. I do not want to become busy simply because there are many good things I could be doing. I want to know what God is actually asking me to carry in this season.

We are not limited by human conditions. God can do more than we have ever asked or thought when we partner with Him in prayer and walk in His will and purpose.

Perhaps slowing down is not about doing less for God simply for the sake of doing less. Perhaps it is about creating enough space to hear Him clearly, allowing Him to heal our hearts, and giving ourselves to the things He is actually asking us to do.

¹ John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People, expanded edition (Zondervan, 2015), 79.

² Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, 95.