What would you say is the greatest challenge to spiritual life and emotional health in Poole in the twenty-first century?

There are probably hundreds of possible answers, but hiding in plain sight is one that may not seem obvious, but is an underlying issue for many of us. It’s what Dallas Willard called ‘the great enemy of spiritual life in our day’: hurry. A life of hurry, speed, and anxiety is a serious danger to us. We may become so distracted, rushed and preoccupied that we will never fully experience the life that Jesus offers.

The cultural and technological trends of the last few decades have created what one author has called ‘the age of acceleration’. We increasingly live at a frenetic pace, rushing and hurrying through life, constantly distracted by our omnipresent digital devices. We sleep less, do more, and feel constant tiredness and low-grade anxiety as a result. And the danger is that because this has become our ‘new normal’, we fail even to realise that hurry is a threat not only to our emotional health but to our spiritual lives as well.

Love is the highest value in the Kingdom of God – but love requires a lot of time and patience. In fact, love and hurry are incompatible. The invitation of Jesus, however, is to an unhurried life: 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.'

This is a radical, countercultural invitation – to an unhurried life filled with love, joy and peace. Jesus’ life was exactly that: although his life was full, he didn’t rush. He had time to talk to people, to sleep, to eat meals, to accept interruptions. If there’s anything you pick up from reading the four Gospels, it’s that Jesus was rarely in a hurry. As John Mark Comer puts it: ‘If you want to experience the life of Jesus, you have to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus.’ Jesus put on display an unhurried life, where space for God and love for people were the top priorities. Jesus is meant to be our model, our pattern. If we want to experience the life that Jesus has on offer, for most of us, that means we need to slow down to Jesus’ pace of life. As Dallas Willard puts it: ‘You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.’