The Slowless Society

Earlier this week, a nasty bug forced me to slow down and spend a couple of days in bed.

On the upside, it allowed me some time to think.

And I realised something once more…

In our modern world, everything around us is designed for speed, at full throttle: fast answers, fast success, fast solutions, fast change, fast communications and fast paced results!

All in an instant!

Our phones, computers and tablets buzz constantly with the latest message and update – my own devices were merrily beeping around me.

Faster and faster and faster.

More scrolling, less living.

We live in what I’m now calling a 𝑺𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝑺𝒐𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒕𝒚.

I turned to one of my favourite scriptures for grounding – Psalm 46:10 – “Be still, and know that I am God”.

Yet in our world there is a strong allergy towards stillness.

More noise, less His voice.

Hurry grows; clarity goes, whilst complexity swirls around us.

We’ve moved from that older “microwave mentality or mindset” to something I fear is far more pervasive.

Simply stated, it is the belief that everything meaningful in life should arrive instantly, without delay, without effort, and certainly without patience.

But my experience is that the soul doesn’t work at microwave speed.

Neither does growth.

Nor discipleship, leadership, healing, or even wisdom.

All of these require time.

And time is one of the greatest gifts we are given, but one that we so rarely honour.

Our Slowless Society pushes us to hurry, to rush, to skip the process, and to become frustrated when life doesn’t heat up in 60 seconds.

It was good to be forced to slow down and be still.

My realisation was this…

Speed steals what stillness reveals.

It’s not about speed, it’s about intention.

What might stillness reveal if I made space for it today?