Walk Slow, Go Easy, Love Well
JUSTIN CAMP
4 min read ⭑
Being unprepared for a test or important event; going nowhere or moving in slow motion; being late for (or missing) a bus, train or plane — according to a 2023 survey, these are among our most common recurring dreams. Fear and frustration about being thwarted or unable to accomplish the things we’d like to accomplish are widespread and ancient. In fact, they are the primary themes of one of the oldest works in human literature — Homer’s “Odyssey,” which follows the King of Ithaca on his journey home from the Trojan War. What should have taken Odysseus a few months takes him 10 years because of the delays and perils he encounters.
The details of my recurring dreams are less interesting than sirens and cyclopes. In them, I typically just need to get ready for a dinner while everyone’s waiting on me or pack for a trip when I’m late for a flight. But, like Odysseus, I get waylaid and waylaid again. Why is it taking so long to trim my beard? Where are those boots? Why do the things that generally fit into my bag not fit now? Where’s my charger cord? Why is my dad calling right now? The in-dream tension builds and becomes nearly unbearable.
Clarisse Meyer; Unsplash
But lately, I feel like I’m living in those dreams for real. I start workdays with big plans. Then, I hit my email inbox and respond to questions from readers (which I love doing). Then, our accountant requests documents. Then, I need to approve payroll. Then, a calendar reminder pops up about lunch with a friend. Then, I join a Zoom with our marketing team. Then one of our kids calls, asking for help with something (also love). Then, I remember it’s my turn to lead my men’s group and need to prepare. Before long, I’m triaging my “big plans” down to something more manageable.
Maybe tomorrow. And in those moments, I feel like I’ve failed yet again.
But perhaps I haven’t.
We humans love to measure and track stuff. And we have highly accurate systems of weights and measures for evaluating just about everything — including the people we’re becoming and the things we’ve gotten done. We never have to wonder what achievements are most noteworthy; what careers most distinguished; what neighborhoods most exclusive; what vacations most glamorous; what cars most luxurious. The culture of our world ensures our gauges remain well-calibrated.
The problem is that none of those are proper instruments for measuring the productivity of our working or non-working hours or the progress of our professional or personal lives. There is nothing wrong with careers, communities or cars in and of themselves. They are just not appropriate measures for people like us. Using them is akin to using a thermometer to measure the weight of a steel beam. It doesn’t work.
As Christians, we must adopt new gauges, ones that can adequately measure our lives and our actions because they’re given to us by Jesus and calibrated by the Holy Spirit in our hearts — like how much of God’s care, kindness and compassion we’re allowing ourselves to receive daily; and how much care, kindness and compassion we’re extending to ourselves; and how much care, kindness and compassion is overflowing from us back to God and onto our spouses, families, friends, colleagues and neighbors.
How can we know these are the right indicators? Well, our King Jesus told us so.
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39, ESV).
For people like us, that’s the proper framework for working out good and true life aspirations — and for getting a sense for how we are doing toward meeting them.
Adopting Jesus’ system of weights and measures — even partially — is a massively beneficial shift for any human being because it focuses more of our time and energy on what’s essential in in life and steers us away from those things that are just not. And it also protects us from the evil and deception of societal pressures — those brutal and baleful messages coming out of traditional and social media.
It doesn’t take all the pressure off, of course. Even if a person’s every planned action were to fall into one of Jesus’ categories — being loved by God and loving him back, loving ourselves and others — he or she is still likely to hope to accomplish more than any of us can accomplish. And that person still might feel like a failure sometimes.
But that gulf between what our eternal hearts desire and what our finite bodies can deliver exists because of how God made us. And his purposes for each of us go beyond this finite, fallen world. He made us for things bigger and better. He made us for a world with fewer limits — a world without thorns and thistles, aggravation and ache. And that world has not yet come.
So, does it make sense to let our expectations-versus-reality tension get us down?
Maybe, instead, by adopting an eternal perspective, we can actually take all the pressure off, knowing we have all the time in the world. Literally. Maybe we can take a deep breath and slow down a bit, knowing we have eternity to experience all the things we want to experience and accomplish all the things we want to accomplish.
Maybe we can take a deep breath and notice more of God’s presence in our world. And listen more for his voice in our lives. And learn how to accept more of his love.
Maybe we can take a deep breath and, as Darren Mulligan of We Are Messengers encourages in the band’s rendition of “The Parting Glass,” try very hard to …
“Walk slow. Go easy. And love well.”
What do those sentences mean to you?
Prayerfully contemplate those seven words and what they could mean for your life.
Justin Camp is the editor-in-chief of Rapt Interviews. He also created the WiRE for Men devotional and wrote the WiRE Series for Men. His writing has also been featured and seen on Charisma, Moody Radio, Focus on the Family, GOD TV, The Christian Post, Crosswalk, Belief.net, LifeWay Men and other media outlets.