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Speaker 1: Life Audio. When was the last time you felt truly unhurried,

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Speaker 1: not just caught up in your schedule, but truly unhurried

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Speaker 1: in your soul. I talk with pastors and leaders every

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Speaker 1: week who feel stretched, thin, running hard, and wondering why

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Speaker 1: their spiritual life feels flat. Somewhere in the Christian classics,

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Speaker 1: there is a quieter wisdom, a way of living that

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Speaker 1: moves at the pace of grace. And before we go

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Speaker 1: any further, Hello, friends, I'm Alan Faddling, and you're listening

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Speaker 1: to the Unhurried Living Podcast, where we inspire you to

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Speaker 1: rest deeper, live fuller, and lead better. Today, I want

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Speaker 1: to share four surprising insights from a nineteenth century pastor,

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Speaker 1: Frederick Faber, whose words feel like they were written for

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Speaker 1: our age of pressure and hurry. If your heart is

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Speaker 1: tired or thirsty, this may be the invitation you've been needing.

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Speaker 1: After a brief word from our sponsor, we'll step into

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Speaker 1: today's theme. I love the spiritual discipline of reading Christian classics.

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Speaker 1: It's been a gift for most of my adult life.

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Speaker 1: I've searched for and mined centuries old wisdom from across

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Speaker 1: the global church. It helps me remember that Christ's Church

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Speaker 1: is so much bigger than my own little experience of

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Speaker 1: it over my few decades of life. Some of my

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Speaker 1: favorite sorts of spiritual classics are collections of spiritual letters

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Speaker 1: written by spiritual directors to those they served. I love

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Speaker 1: personal journals that help me get to know a particular

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Speaker 1: spiritual figure in Christian history. And I love retreat talks

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Speaker 1: and sermons. They're often ridden for a particular group with

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Speaker 1: their own unique concerns, and that focus helps me recognize

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Speaker 1: something in my own story. A while back, I found

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Speaker 1: a book called Spiritual Conferences by Frederick Faber. He was

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Speaker 1: a nineteenth century English pastor and hymn writer. He served

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Speaker 1: within the Catholic tradition, but his insights about prayer and

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Speaker 1: the love of God reach across traditions and centuries. His

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Speaker 1: words carry a surprising weight for those of us trying

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Speaker 1: to serve Christ in a world that prizes speed, visibility,

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Speaker 1: and constant output. What he says feels both unsettling and

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Speaker 1: strangely freeing. I gathered four passages is from this book

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Speaker 1: that I'd like to share and comment on. Maybe you

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Speaker 1: can think of them as four movements in a single

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Speaker 1: piece of music. Each is distinct, but they echo the

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Speaker 1: same deep theme. Life with God just grows best at

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Speaker 1: an unhurried pace. In a first passage, listen to Faber's

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Speaker 1: startling claim. He says, quote the Saints as a class

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Speaker 1: did you things. Their lives were by no means crammed

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Speaker 1: with works, even works of mercy. They made a point

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Speaker 1: of keeping considerable reserves of time for themselves and for

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Speaker 1: the affairs of their own souls. Their lives seem very

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Speaker 1: empty of facts, disappointingly empty. Now line caught me off

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Speaker 1: guard when I first read it. The Saints did few things.

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Speaker 1: Their lives were, as Faber says, disappointingly empty. And doesn't

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Speaker 1: that push against something in you? I mean, especially our

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Speaker 1: modern leadership instincts. We imagine that good work means a

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Speaker 1: crammed full life, a full calendar, a full inbox, a

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Speaker 1: full weekend. But the Saints kept reserves of time. They

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Speaker 1: let their practices remain few and simple. They weren't driven

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Speaker 1: by publicity or by productivity. Their activity was, as Faber

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Speaker 1: puts it, far more contemplative than we are inclined to suspect.

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Speaker 1: We would probably look at their days and imagine they

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Speaker 1: probably didn't get very much done. So what looked like

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Speaker 1: emptiness was actually availability. It was a spaciousness for God.

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Speaker 1: Their hiddenness became fertile ground where deep roots could grow.

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Speaker 1: They trusted that fruitfulness comes not from frantic effort, but

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Speaker 1: from abiding presence. And so I wonder, for myself and

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Speaker 1: for you, where might God be inviting you to practice

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Speaker 1: this kind of holy spaciousness. Where might doing fewer things

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Speaker 1: be an expression of courage rather than neglect. Faber says

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Speaker 1: it plainly elsewhere the saints were those who did less

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Speaker 1: than other people, but who did what they had to

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Speaker 1: do a thousand times better. There's just a quiet beauty

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Speaker 1: in that, a kind of focused fidelity, a refusal to

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Speaker 1: be spread thin. This brings us to a second passage

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Speaker 1: from Fabor that moves from activity to something even more intimate.

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Speaker 1: It's how we receive grace itself. This is what he writes.

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Speaker 1: He says, we are too much given to swallowing our

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Speaker 1: graces without chewing them. We do not extract from them

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Speaker 1: the sweetness or the medicinal virtue which God has deposited

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Speaker 1: in them. We are too quick with them. I suspect

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Speaker 1: half of our lukewarmness comes from impetuosity and precipitation from

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Speaker 1: human activity, and a want of slowness before God. Now,

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Speaker 1: I bet you haven't used either impetuosity or precipitation in

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Speaker 1: a sentence anytime recently, unless, of course, you were talking

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Speaker 1: about a recent rainstorm or something. These are eighteenth century words,

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Speaker 1: but they describe a modern problem. It's the problem of hurry.

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Speaker 1: It's not just something we wrestle with today. It is

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Speaker 1: a human problem that we have always struggled with. And

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Speaker 1: isn't His imagery jarring? We gulp grace, we swallow it whole,

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Speaker 1: and we hurry on. We don't stay with grace long

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Speaker 1: enough to let it nourish us, and even less long

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Speaker 1: enough to let it reshape us. He even suggests that

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Speaker 1: our lukewarmness may not come from too little activity, It

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Speaker 1: might come from too much hurry. I still see that

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Speaker 1: in myself. I wonder, if you do, God will give

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Speaker 1: me a word of encouragement or some moment of clarity.

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Speaker 1: And before I've even had time to savor it, I'm

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Speaker 1: already translating it into a blog post, or into a

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Speaker 1: part of a talk or a podcast. Paragrapher some shaable

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Speaker 1: insight I convert grace into productivity way too quickly. You see,

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Speaker 1: Christian leaders can become professional gulpers of grace. But grace

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Speaker 1: isn't fast food. It's meant to be savored and tasted

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Speaker 1: and slowly received. Faber says, we're missing half of what

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Speaker 1: grace carries simply because we move too fast to notice.

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Speaker 1: So let me ask you what grace in your life

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Speaker 1: right now needs a little bit more chewing. What gift

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Speaker 1: from God have you rushed past that might have become

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Speaker 1: medicine if you let it linger on your tongue just

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Speaker 1: a little bit longer. Now I know this is a

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Speaker 1: very quiet and countercultural way of thinking, slowing down enough

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Speaker 1: to savor what God gives. There's a third passage in

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Speaker 1: which Faber turns toward the heart behind our work. This

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Speaker 1: is what he writes, The only important thing in good

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Speaker 1: works is the amount of love we put into them.

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Speaker 1: The soul of an action is its motive. The power

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Speaker 1: of an action is in its intention, and intention is

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Speaker 1: pure in proportion as it is loving. A sentences like

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Speaker 1: this just stop me. Every time. We're surrounded by so

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Speaker 1: many other ways of measuring attendance or popularity, or visibility

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Speaker 1: or efficiency. And these metrics have their place, but they

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Speaker 1: can fade rather quickly. They don't tend to endy. Sure

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Speaker 1: love endures. What matters most is not the size of

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Speaker 1: our work, but the love with which we offer it.

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Speaker 1: In God's economy, a quiet act of love done in

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Speaker 1: secret carries more weight. It's far more than a dazzling

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Speaker 1: achievement that is offered for reasons other than love. And again,

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Speaker 1: love lasts far longer. So maybe the question here isn't

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Speaker 1: how much am I doing, but how much love is

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Speaker 1: in what I'm doing. Maybe the call isn't to increase

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Speaker 1: the quantity of our service, but the depth of our intention.

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Speaker 1: To let our work, however small or hidden, be rooted

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Speaker 1: in love, because love is the only measure that lasts.

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Speaker 1: Let me close with one final passage from Frederick Faber.

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Speaker 1: It's maybe the most vivid picture of all of them.

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Speaker 1: He says, they are so pressed by all they have

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Speaker 1: taken upon themselves that they get into a hurry and

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Speaker 1: so raise a dust as they go, and this dust

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Speaker 1: hinders them from seeing God. I don't know about you,

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Speaker 1: but I feel that image in my guts. I know

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Speaker 1: what it's like to take on more than Grace has

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Speaker 1: given even good things holy thing. When the pressure builds,

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Speaker 1: I slip into hurry And it doesn't take much, but

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Speaker 1: hurry kicks up dust. That's how Faber puts it. We

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Speaker 1: don't usually think of hurry as something that blinds us,

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Speaker 1: but that's exactly what he names. Hurry raises a cloud

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Speaker 1: that obscures our vision. Sometimes the very activity we mean

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Speaker 1: you to do in service of God becomes the thing

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Speaker 1: that hides God from me. Too much, even of a

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Speaker 1: good thing becomes its own veil. And so the invitation

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Speaker 1: we've extended time and time again here comes back around

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Speaker 1: slow down, do less, but do less more. Deeply trust

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Speaker 1: that clarity comes not from pressure to activity, but from

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Speaker 1: unhurried presence. Maybe the truest thing we can offer those

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Speaker 1: we lead is not our pace, but our presence, Not

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Speaker 1: our dust, but a clear vision of God. Now, all

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Speaker 1: of these invitations, from doing fewer things to savoring grace,

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Speaker 1: from working in love to slowing down the dust of

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Speaker 1: our own hurry, these aren't just ideas to master, but

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Speaker 1: these are ways of opening ourselves to God Again. Maybe

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Speaker 1: even now, you notice a place where grace is nudging

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Speaker 1: you to slow, to breathe to receive. I'd like to

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Speaker 1: take a moment to bring all of that before God

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Speaker 1: as we close prayerfully. I'll call this a prayer for

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Speaker 1: the journey Lord of rest and clarity. Forgive the dust

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Speaker 1: I raise when I hurry, Settle my soul like still water,

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Speaker 1: clear my eyes to see you again. Teach me the

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Speaker 1: grace of doing less, the courage of moving slowly, the

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Speaker 1: joy of walking in step with you. I'm in. Thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening to the Unhurried Living podcast. Learn more

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Speaker 1: about us visit Unhurriedliving dot com. In the show notes,

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Speaker 1: you'll find helpful links and information about our partner, Live Audio,

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Speaker 1: and all of their other faith centered podcast