Every year before our kids head back to school, we have a tradition in our family. We gather together, pray over each of our children, and ask God to guide them through the coming school year. It’s one of my favorite things we do.
We pray for their teachers, their friendships, their character, and the things they’re going to experience over the next several months. And as they’ve gotten older, it’s become more meaningful because they’re beginning to understand what we’re doing and why it matters. This year, after we finished praying over them, they decided they wanted to pray over us.
It was one of those moments where you realize that something you’ve been intentionally practicing with your family is beginning to shape them in ways you didn’t necessarily anticipate. And I’ve thought about that moment quite a bit because I think it illustrates something important.
The things that matter most in our lives often require us to create space for them before they ever feel urgent. Nobody was going to send us an email reminding us to pray over our children. There wasn’t a deadline or some immediate consequence if we didn’t do it. But that didn’t make it unimportant.
The Problem With Living in a Hurry
I think one of the greatest challenges of modern life is that we’ve become incredibly good at responding to whatever feels most urgent. Our phones buzz, our calendars fill up, someone needs something, a problem develops, and suddenly the day is over.
We worked hard. We accomplished things. We responded to people. And yet we can reach the end of the day feeling like we never actually invested in the things that matter most. And here’s what makes this difficult. A lot of the things demanding our attention are genuinely important. Your job matters. Your family matters. Responsibilities matter. Helping people matters. But urgency and importance aren’t the same thing. Something can demand your immediate attention without deserving the greatest portion of your life.
And something can be incredibly important while never creating the kind of pressure that forces you to prioritize it. Your relationship with your spouse probably won’t send you a calendar notification announcing that you’ve become emotionally disconnected. Your spiritual life may not feel like an emergency when you haven’t prayed in several weeks. Your children may not be able to explain why they need more of your attention. But over time, those things matter enormously.
Jesus Was Busy, but He Wasn’t Controlled by Hurry
One of the things I find fascinating about Jesus is how often He seems completely unconcerned with the expectations other people place on His schedule. In Mark 1, Jesus has been teaching and healing people. Crowds are gathering, needs are increasing, and there’s an enormous opportunity to continue doing good things. But early the next morning, Jesus gets up and goes to a solitary place to pray. Eventually, His disciples find Him and tell Him that everyone is looking for Him.
Now, think about that for a moment. People genuinely need help. There are opportunities to make an impact. The demand is there. And Jesus responds by telling them it’s time to go somewhere else. That seems like an unusual decision until you recognize that Jesus understood something we often forget. He knew why He was there.
He wasn’t allowing the urgency of every request to determine the direction of His life. He was living with a clear sense of purpose and remaining attentive to what His Father had called Him to do. And because of that, He could say no to good opportunities without feeling like He was abandoning His mission. I think some of us desperately need to learn that.
Saying No Can Be an Act of Faithfulness
We tend to think about following God primarily in terms of what we’re willing to say yes to. Will we serve? Will we give? Will we help? Will we step into an opportunity? And those things matter. But sometimes faithfulness requires us to say no.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your family is decline another commitment. Sometimes the healthiest decision you can make is to stop responding to work after a certain time. Sometimes you need to recognize that being available to everyone all the time is preventing you from being meaningfully present with the people God has entrusted to you. And I think this becomes especially challenging when the thing you’re saying no to is genuinely good.
It’s easier to say no to something obviously destructive. It’s much harder to say no to an opportunity that could help someone, advance your career, or accomplish something meaningful. But if we say yes to everything, eventually we won’t have the capacity to say yes to the things that matter most.
Jesus didn’t accomplish His mission by responding to every possible demand. He accomplished His mission by remaining faithful to what the Father had called Him to do. And I wonder what would change if we began approaching our schedules with that same kind of intentionality.
Putting This Into Practice
I don’t think the solution to hurry is simply becoming better at managing time. I think it begins with becoming clearer about what matters and developing the courage to arrange our lives accordingly.
1Identify what’s urgent and what’s important.
Take a look at your upcoming week and write down the responsibilities that feel most pressing. Then make a separate list of the relationships and priorities that matter most to you. Compare the two. Are the things that matter most receiving intentional attention, or are they consistently being pushed aside by whatever feels urgent? Choose one important thing that has been neglected and put it on your calendar.
2Practice saying no to one good thing.
This week, identify one request, opportunity, or commitment that you could reasonably decline. It doesn’t have to be something bad. In fact, it may be something genuinely good. Before saying yes, ask yourself whether accepting it will take time or energy away from something more important. If the answer is yes, give yourself permission to decline without feeling obligated to provide an elaborate explanation.
3Begin each day by asking God what matters most.
Before opening your email, checking social media, or diving into your responsibilities, take a few minutes to pray. Ask God to help you recognize where He wants you to invest your attention that day. Then choose one action that reflects that priority. It might be encouraging someone, having a meaningful conversation, spending time with your family, or simply creating room to listen. You probably won’t eliminate every urgent responsibility from your life. And that’s not the goal.
The goal is to become the kind of person who can recognize the difference between being busy and being faithful. Because at the end of our lives, I don’t think we’ll wish we’d responded to more emails or filled more hours with activity.
I think we’ll be grateful for the moments when we had the wisdom to recognize what mattered and the courage to make room for it.
