The invention of the train made people uneasy. Some experts claimed that if humans traveled faster than 20 mph, they would suffocate. They said if we kept pushing for even greater speeds, our bones would fall apart. Many religious leaders were convinced mankind was not meant to travel at such an extreme speed: 35 miles an hour.
We laugh at this, but speed does play a significant role in our physical and spiritual well-being. Not only do we do (and have) too much—we are also moving too fast. Progress inevitably leads to increasing our speed. It is generally understood that faster is better.
A car can take us almost anywhere very fast. Even though our bones don’t fall apart, there are still undeniable side effects. We have become less physically active. There was a time when you drove somewhere, and once you arrived, you had to get out of the car. Now, with drive-throughs, you never have to leave your car at all.
The car is an amazing and useful invention, but as with all inventions of impact, there are tradeoffs. It’s true, the car does make it possible for you to visit your family who lives far away. But the car is the reason your family lives far away. Before the car, families spent more time together. After dinner, you were somewhat stuck at home. Your only option was to spend time together. The car made it possible for one or a few of you to leave, often in different directions.
The car helps you go fast all the time—and it’s never fast enough. We’re always looking for a shortcut. Even if you’re not late, you’re usually in a hurry. If the person in front of you would learn to drive as perfectly as you, the world would be a better place.
This, in turn, often leads to anger. Christians are supposed to be “slow to anger” (James 1:19). Anger in itself isn’t wrong, but it can certainly become a deal breaker for your Christianity. “A man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). How well you handle your anger while driving your car is a defining part of your life.
People interact with other people differently when they’re in cars. They say and do things they would never say or do face-to-face. We’ve all heard the stories of how traffic altercations have led to mindless rage. Even if you don’t act on it, God condemns this kind of anger. A Christian does not indulge “outbursts of anger” (Galatians 5:20 NAS) a.k.a “fits of rage” (Galatians 5:20 NIV).
A Christian understands that he is expected to submit to authority (Romans 13:1). Yet a great majority of us don’t feel even the slightest twinge of guilt if we break the speed limit.
The speed feels necessary. But experts have done the math. Going faster than the speed limit usually puts you at your destination a mere minute or two sooner.
But it’s not just our means of transportation. Everything in our lives is fashioned for speed. We have countless inventions that do things faster than normal. They’re called time-saving devices.
When we first started inventing “time-saving” devices, we expected to have a lot of extra free time. But something happened along the way. We have more time-saving devices than ever before, but we have less free time than ever before.
What happened? Where is all the time our time-saving devices were supposed to provide for us?
There was a trade-off. These devices save time, but they also change the way we live our lives.
The dishwasher is a good example. This device was specifically designed to save time. It clearly takes more time to wash the dishes by hand. If you buy one of these machines, you get all that time back.
But now you have more dishes to clean. Now you have to spend more time working to pay for the dishwasher and all your other time-saving devices. If your dishwasher breaks down, you lose an incredible amount of time trying to figure out how and when to replace it.
But maybe the most significant loss isn’t time. The dishwasher robs you of the conversation you would have had with your family. If someone had washed the dishes and someone else had dried them, what would you have talked about? Our time-saving devices tend to separate us. We save time, but we lose time together.
A young man from MIT joined a community similar to the Amish for a short time to study how a reduction in technology might affect his life. He discovered that a lack of time-saving devices often resulted in two or more people working together. Each job became an opportunity to develop friendships and strengthen families.
This brings to mind the crucial connection between parents and their children as described in the Bible. “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).
This passage implies time spent together, having conversations. Nothing necessarily planned—but teaching nonetheless. Words moving from one heart to another. When you are side-by-side long enough, even small talk can become profound. Some of the most important conversations you’ll ever have will be while you’re doing something mundane.
But our speed-efficient lives have reduced our conversations to one word: Hurry! Moving faster and faster robs us of the time together essential for relationships.
From a practical point of view, it’s only logical to go faster. If two machines do the same thing and one does it faster, that makes it the better machine. When we apply this same logic to people, we see the problem. If one man gets ten things done in a day and another man gets twenty things done in a day, we believe the second man is doing better with his life. He is far more efficient.
So we cram in as much as we can. But this means we have to spend less time on everything we do. We have to do each thing faster. If you can get to work ten minutes sooner by taking the highway, that’s better. If you can make dinner in thirty minutes instead of an hour, that’s better.
Yet, when this same thinking creeps into every aspect of your life, you begin to feel a loss. If you can eat dinner as a family in twenty minutes instead of forty, that’s “better.” Fifteen minutes playing with your children is “better” than thirty. A two-minute prayer is “better” than a whole five minutes.
If you’re doing too much, the result is inevitable. You will spend less time on each thing. Each interaction becomes a blip with almost no substance. Life becomes a superficial itinerary without any true connections.
There’s another significant trade-off when you’re moving this fast. Anything that interferes with your speed annoys you. Even your loved-ones feel like obstacles.
Not only do we have less and less time for family and friends. This chronic time-overload also affects our relationship with God. We don’t pray or read the Bible, and we miss the assembly because we “don’t have time.” Everyone has time for the things that matter. We simply move so fast that we typically spend all our time on the things that don’t matter.
Deep down, we all feel this overload. Whenever we take a vacation, we talk about it in the same terms as a prison break: “I need to escape.” Our society is filled with people who find their “escape” through drugs. They don’t do it just for the buzz. They need to get away from their life.
If you brought a man from the 1800s to visit the 21st Century, he would initially be very impressed by our amazing inventions. The cars, the planes, the computers would be stunning. But it wouldn’t be long before he noticed something, and he might ask, “If the 21st Century is so great, why do so many people depend on some form of sedation?” There is a huge amount of stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and sleeplessness. That means something’s wrong.
Jesus had some friends who lived a couple of miles outside Jerusalem, in Bethany—two sisters and a brother. One of the sisters was Mary. She sat with Jesus, taking the time for a conversation. The other sister, Martha, was STRESSED. OUT. “But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me’” (Luke 10:40). For Martha, there was a bunch of stuff to do. There was this, and there was that. There was certainly no dishwasher.
Jesus didn’t reprimand Mary. He reprimanded Martha, the frantic sister who was doing too much too fast. “But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things” (Luke 10:41). The word “worried” can also be translated “anxious” or “distracted.” The word “bothered” can be translated as “turbulent” or “troubled. Martha, Martha was anxiously distracted and turbulently troubled. Not just about a few things, but “many things.” She would have fit right in today.
Jesus recommended to Martha the same things He recommended to the rich young man. Stop adding stuff. Start subtracting stuff. “Only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:42).
Your life is a storm made of many things that ultimately don’t matter. Just like Martha, our To-Do List probably needs a renovation. We might need to get a lot of things done, but at the top of the list should be analyzing our spiritual condition. Take the time to make sure you’re right with God.
But here’s the thing: unless you make some significant changes, things won’t stay the same. Life will become more and more. Life will get faster and faster. You will be worried and bothered about more and more things and lose focus on all the things that truly matter.
God tells us, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves” (II Corinthians 13:5). You can’t do this is if you’re hurtling through life.
