I was in Walmart a few days ago waiting in line. Which is what you do at Walmart. You wait. In line. A lot. It’s a rare thing to find a completely open lane. So there I was waiting. Again. The lady in front of me had quite a few items. Her cart wasn’t completely full but it was close. There were only two other lanes open and they were full as well so I stayed put. And the cashier took her sweet time scanning each item. Holding it up, examining it like she had never seen it before.

The last item was finally dropped in the bag and the woman reached for her purse to pay but then she froze. I could see the wheels turning. As she rummaged through her purse she let out a heavy sigh. She dug some more. A bigger sigh. She told the cashier that, sure enough, she had left her credit card in the car. She let out a third sigh then turned to me and said, “I’m so sorry, I know this is taking forever, but I will be right back.”

I responded to her and by the look on her face as well as the cashiers, you would have thought I had said a curse word.

“It’s OK, I’m not in a hurry.”

The looks on both their faces really were priceless. Furrowed brow, dropped jaw. Did he just say he wasn’t in a hurry?! How dare he! Wash that mouth out with soap young man!

Turns out slow really is a four letter word in our culture.

If you are not in a hurry you must be wasting time. If you are not producing something what good are you, really? If you a resting you must be lazy.
We move too fast and too often value time over people. Jesus didn’t do this. He was interruptible. Much of his ministry was “on the way” ministry.

On the way from one place to another is where much of his work was done.

You want to be truly radical and countercultural? You don’t have to protect your kids from bad movies and music. You don’t have to protest gay marriage or abortion. You don’t have to win our country back for God.

Just slow down.