It was one of those miracle days. Every traffic signal I approached was green. I just soared through town as if I had a police escort. You most likely have also had such a trip but you know it is rare. Of course there are those days that compensate for it. All the lights are red and ten minutes is added to our journeys. Sometimes we complain about life’s obstacles. We have goals and dreams and things get in the way and slow us down. We wanted to be on the fast track and were not. However, the obstacles could be unrecognized assets. They force us to slow down and look around and re-evaluate where we should be heading.
I got my BA and MA in four years. Why? It was stupid. But I was in a hurry. I wanted to get out of the seminary and quickly save the world. The result was many of my courses where done as quickly and with as little effort as possible. The result being that I paid for an education I didn’t get. I needed someone or something to slow me down. There were no red lights. It was all green. The red lights came later in life. It was then that I got a real education.
We have all heard the expression “slow down and smell the roses.” It sounds so trite we fail to see the inherent wisdom. Jesus waited in the carpentry shop for thirty years. He watched his neighbors and relatives and learned about people. He was not a man in a rush. Two years into His ministry He did not go to Passover because they were waiting to kill Him. He took another year.
Written by Roger Bothwell on October 11, 2013
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