How is the Pace of Your Life?

How is the pace of your life? Seriously, how is it? Most of us would answer that with the response “busy”? But is busy the pace we desire? Busy weeks certainly are inevitable but what about the normative week. Do you find every week being busy beyond what you hope for? While the year is still young, and new year aspirations are on our minds, is there a different pace than you would desire for your life other than the standard “busy”?

A “pace” is a metaphor for the rhythm of life we sustain.

Finding a healthy pace for life is good for our healthy, holistically, which includes our mind, body, and spirit. While life presents many demands, we all come to terms with the fact that we can only bear so much, so often.

Our “pace” is not a speed by which we move, necessarily, but how we move. Think about it like someone going for a run. Some people can keep a 7mph pace while running on a treadmill for miles on end! Others of us have to try hard to keep a 5mph. That’s the thing, we all can maintain a different pace. 

Keeping a healthy pace of life is about being self-aware about what we can do, not what others can.

Take a moment to evaluate the pace of your weekly life. Is there anything that can be reduced or cut out all together? As trendy as the topic of decluttering is, not many of us have considered decluttering our schedule. And before we write this off as being impossible, if there is even one thing we can remove from our week–one thing that puts the pace of our life over the limit–isn’t that worth eliminating? Like running on the treadmill a few mph too fast. sometimes we have to turn the dial down a few.

One of the most fascinating things about discipleship to Jesus involves the challenge to our pace. He certainly gives us some priorities that are worth our time and attention! But then there are some things that might need to fall off to the wayside. 

Part of what Jesus offers you and me with a new life “in Christ” means a new pace of life to accompany it.

God’s will is that we walk in the pace of grace, grounded and empowered by spiritual rhythms and practices. Something we have blogged about before, but will be putting more emphasis on teaching this year in various settings. 

Our hope is that one of the things we would each evaluate seriously is the pace of our life. “Burn out” comes for us all, not just pastors or Christian leaders. If we are resolved to do something about it, we might just take some time to look at how our days and weeks are spent. We might just see some things that can be let go of, and we might find that we are living life with more burdens than are necessary. Life is hard enough as is, let’s live light where we can. Jesus calls out:

Come to me all who are exhausted and beaten down by the burdens of this life and I will give you refreshment. (Matthew 11:28, paraphrased)

Next time someone asks how you are doing, what if your answer was “refreshed and ready for the day!”? It is possible. It is the desire of Rabbi Jesus to lead us into this new pace.