Abiding
Why we go slow
Last weekend at breakfast, my father-in-law “apologized” for eating more slowly than the rest of the table. He said he was learning to enjoy his food. To take time and savor.
I rolled my eyes a little and felt a little judged.
But, of course, he’s onto something.
I could spend the next few paragraphs telling you about diminishing attention spans, rapid swipes, mindless scrolling, and the out-of-control pace of modern life. I could talk about how much we consume simply because we haven’t slowed down to notice what we’ve had (shows, food, clothes, music, “relationships,” affirmation…). I could tell you life is a smear.
But I don’t have to, because you feel it. You live it—everything in motion, quickness the expectation, burning effort and energy and capital like jet fuel…
Life is a spooked horse. If you’re lucky, you’re helpless in the saddle. More likely, you’re being dragged behind.
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I have this way (read: compulsive obsession) of trying to elegantly align methodology and theology (practice and belief, behavior and faith, hand and head).
For example, I wrote the book Look to Love because I was convinced that the reality of a “greatest command” should have some impact on how I read the Bible. If my whole life is to be about one primary thing, shouldn’t Bible reading serve that one thing? In Look to Love I explored the “why” and “how” of Bible study given our purpose as beings made to love God: What’s our prime directive when we open the book? What does God want to show us? What questions should we bring to the text?
Recently I’ve found myself having tunneled further down the rabbit hole asking more questions about what Bible reading “should” or “could” look like in the Christian life—particularly in terms of goals and pace. I’m wondering whether our culturally-inherited ways of being (including a fast pace, high rate of consumption, expectation of quick pay off, and efficiency-forward ambition), are setting us up for fruitful or unfruitful encounters with God in Scripture.
More and more it seems Christians want to read and understand the Bible quickly (enter the proliferation of read-the-Bible-in-a-year plans). They want immediate, measurable results from their Bible reading (a good feeling, a practical tip, or an answer to a personal question). And they want to confine that Bible reading to a 20 minute quiet time (fully expecting significant moral improvement as a result).
Can that work?
As I did while writing Look to Love, I find myself turning to what we might call “column passages” in Scripture, the key verses upon which our belief system rests—the ones outlining the fundamental physics of Christian life. All passages of Scripture are God-breathed and profitable. Some are more foundational—as evidenced by position, repetition, and context.
Psalm 1 is an example, a sort of key psalm in the collection—first in placement and first in principle, and it’s Psalm 1 that inspired my most recent reconsideration of my Bible-reading practices.
Here’s Psalm 1:1-3…
How happy is the one who does not
walk in the advice of the wicked
or stand in the pathway with sinners
or sit in the company of mockers!
Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night.
He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams
that bears its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
This imagery of man as a tree planted beside a river permeates Scripture. It’s a reference to our origin—Adam and Eve planted beside a river in Eden—and a glimpse of our destiny—“Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month.” Revelation 22:1-2
God gives the prophet Ezekiel a vision of a wide, deep river flowing out from the temple in Jerusalem. He tells the prophet, “There will be life everywhere the river goes” (Ezekiel 47:9).
The Old Testament message is straightforward and practical: find the river, stay there, and live.
Stay. Remain. Be planted. Meditate.
These are slow verbs, and a tree is one of the slowest nouns.
A tree fruits in time—not through effort but through sustained, committed stillness. The river feeds the tree. The tree receives the river. Every day, anew each day, year after year after year.
When I first imagined the concept for Deep Water. Slow Reading., I couldn’t stop thinking about this idea of being planted. What does it look like to approach Bible reading not as a “catch ‘em all” expedition (read all the books, harvest all the truths, answer all the questions, learn all the tips), but rather as a quiet settling in? What does it look like to open the Bible and plant yourself there?
It’s not the most natural way to read the Bible given our culture. It will take unlearning and retraining. But it seems to be the way God intended for you to experience His Word.
So, in one week, we’ll attempt to be trees, planting ourselves beside the river of John chapters 14, 15, and 16. This passage is particularly appropriate for slow reading as it’s explicitly an invitation to abide (or stay or remain) in Christ—Christ who is river, spring, and living water, Christ in whom we dwell and Christ who dwells in us…
Jesus begins John 14 with a gentle word for His apostles: “Don’t let your heart be troubled.”
Calm down. Listen. Be still.
Abide…
And then, for three chapters, He simply sits with them in their confusion and concern. The river feeds the tree. The tree receives the river…
Over the next few days I’ll share more details about the study just to make sure you’re ready. Please, invite a friend or two to read along with you (together is better than alone), and be praying for God to prepare you for whatever’s He’s about to do in you. Scripture has power. Don’t get close unless you’re willing to be (gently) shocked. ;)
Godspeed,
JL