Saturday, February 21, 2009

What's the Rush?

Haste makes waste. So says the old proverb. I don't know the origin of this pithy saying. But it makes a lot of sense to me...especially after yesterday. A couple of things happened that I've been musing about. Not that they were amusing in nature but by their nature caused me to stop and think about life...and death.
I was asked to assist in a funeral service yesterday. As the service ended, I was struck with a contrast in procedural protocol as a pastor. A customary position for a pastor in a wedding is to follow the couple out of the building after the ceremony. But in a funeral, the pastor leads the way, even preceding the casket, carried along by the pallbearers. The service was at one location and the burial was in another, a few miles away. So a funeral procession was necessary. As a pastor in a funeral procession, it is customary to travel ahead of the hearse. I don't pretend to know all the symbolism that may be behind it all. But I've been pondering about the significance of these things and the contrast between hustling and bustling and taking time to enjoy life and experience death. In the procession, law enforcement officials led the way, their emergency lights flashing, stopping traffic at intersections to allow the procession to flow unhindered and uninterrupted to the graveside. As I was traveling yesterday, through a sparsely inhabited countryside, I asked the question to myself, "What's the rush? Where are we going in such a hurry?"
Follow my mind back to the wedding scene. Now that's a scary thought! Not the wedding, but following my mind. We could get very lost very fast! The young couple is leaving the building with the pastor following. They will begin to move into a season of life where it won't take them long to get caught up running to and fro and life will press in on them with added expectations and new responsibilities and soon they can find themselves running on empty. They'll get there faster than they realize and wonder how they got to where they are. And it will usually be in the middle of a mess or waylaid in a wreck. And the pastor has been following all the while, trying to catch them, trying to help them, trying to teach them God's word for wise living. But they've been too busy. So they run until one day they have run far enough. I think some movie character said that. Where are they going in such a hurry? What's the rush?
The second thing happened later last night. My wife and I were going on a date. We started doing that on a regular basis a few years ago. We started asking these questions of ourselves. What's the rush? Where are we going in such a hurry? It changed the way we viewed our lives together. It didn't change our life. It changed the way we respond to it. Our life is our life. And our death is coming. We were waiting on a red traffic light to green up and the person on our left received his left turn arrow. These signals, or symbols, are supposed to be protected. You should be able to turn safely. As he entered the intersection, a large car barrelled into the intersection, narrowly missing my left turn neighbor, but colliding with the one who was turning left from across the intersection. As we sat there stunned, I thought, "What was the rush? Where was he going? Didn't he see the stop light? Didn't he read the symbol? Didn't he see the sign? That driver has wrecked another driver with a wreck!
Isn't that what can happen? We wreck others with our wrecks. Sometimes we can't help it. We are wrecked in nature. But often it is because we are running too fast to know how fast we are going. Here is wisdom.
Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." (James 4:14-15)
As I think back on the first thing I was thinking about, it's a fast trip to the grave. Whether you're seven or seventy. They'll even stop traffic for you. At that point, you won't be in hurry. So tell me, friend, what's the rush?
Blessings to you,
Sam

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