“It is not good … to be hasty and miss the way.”

Proverbs 19:2

Life in Northern Virginia happens at an insane pace.  You see evidence of it all around you.  I don’t often have to commute on I-66.  But on the occasions that I do (usually in stop and go traffic), I see people texting, putting on makeup, reading the newspaper, eating breakfast, talking on their Bluetooth devices, and listening to the radio; all while they are supposed to be driving!  Maybe you are one of them.  Our lives are so over crowded and our to-do lists are so filled that we have to do two, three or even four things at once just to keep our heads above water. 

We often call this “multi-tasking” and it’s a computer term.  Computers are able to do multiple tasks at the same time or at least appear to. So, you can run Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint while defragmenting your hard drive or downloading a large file off the internet.  In reality, however, the computer is not really doing two things at once.  Instead, it is prioritizing multiple processes and rapidly switching between tasks, back and forth.  And as anyone who has a PC knows, if you get too many programs running at the same time the computer has a tendency to grind to a halt.  

As it turns out, the same is true of the human brain.  We can’t truly multi-task either, even though we think we can.  Dr. Earl Miller, professor of neuroscience at MIT says that for the most part, we simply can’t focus on more than one thing at a time.  “People can’t multitask very well, and when people say they can, they’re deluding themselves.  Switching from task to task, you think you’re actually paying attention to everything around you at the same time.  But, you’re actually not.”  (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794)

Maybe that explains the half a dozen fender benders that happen on the beltway every day. 

There are also spiritual consequences to being overly busy.  Many times the Lord tries to speak to us, but we are so preoccupied that we can’t hear His voice through the white noise of our overly busy life.  Other times we are so overwhelmed that we can’t seem to make room for spiritual disciplines like silence, solitude, study, ministry or community.  When I see the low participation in church Christmas caroling or the Thanksgiving prayer walk, I wonder if it is because we are just too busy to be intentional about our spiritual lives.  This proverb warns us that with haste we may “miss the way.”  In other words, it is possible for us to miss God’s best for us because we made a hasty, unthinking decision or never took the time to listen. This Thanksgiving, intentionally take some time to slow down and enjoy the moment.  You may miss a few door-buster specials, but I doubt you will regret catching up on sleep or spending quality time with your family or with God.  

You may just avoid a spiritual fender bender.