Time to slow down? Taking your foot off the pedal

The Eagles were one of the most successful bands in musical history selling over 200 million records worldwide. Their first hit, Take it Easy, was a song about letting go of stress, avoiding self-inflicted pressure and enjoying the moment. It’s a lesson we could well learn today. It seems, in this media-drenched, increasingly pressurised and frantic time, we have lost the art of slowing down.

Today we live in a world where everything is based on speed – fast transportation, fast Internet access, fast news, fast food. The Bible predicted this is what would happen. God told Daniel that in the last days “many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (Dan.12v4). Is that not a picture of society today?

We are swamped with information, but in our busy lives we have lost the ability to slow down, relax and reflect. Christians too have been swept into this vortex of vein-popping urgency and have come to believe that to achieve happiness and our purpose in life we must continually move at speed.