E53 The Spiritual Power of Slowing Down: Why God Calls Us to Linger, Not Rush

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:00)
when was the last time you lingered? In our world today, the emphasis is all about fast. It’s all about doing more. What if moving slower or lingering is actually really good for you? In the back of your mind, you’re always thinking, my goodness, I should be further along by now. I’ve got all these things to do. And it’s rush, rush, rush. But today, we’re going to talk about the unhealthy reasons why we choose

busyness over a slower pace of life and why it’s so valuable to linger.

Welcome back to Into the Depth’s podcast where we go below the surface. Today, I wanna talk about the concept of lingering. This has been on my mind for a little while and I feel like God has invited me.

so many times over the last couple of months to slow down, be still, linger, hang out with him more often in longer spurts of time. in our culture today, so, we live at such a hurried pace. It just feels normal and natural to rush, rush, rush. I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve paused to ask myself, why am I rushing right now? Like I’m not on a deadline. I don’t even know why I’m in such a hurry. It just becomes

comes that normal pace. just, feels natural to keep moving like that. And when I pause, you know, and I can realize I’m driven by, you know, the pressure I’m putting on myself to perform or, a wrong expectation of how fast I should get something done. In fact, even just today, I’m running behind, you know, I wanted to be done recording by now and here I am. You know, it took me double the amount of time to do my outlines for the, for the two episodes I’m recording today. And I just

That really bothers me. You know, I have I have this rule that I have for myself that I really want to be able to do an outline in an hour or less and it just is a struggle for me. It’s typically closer to two hours and I don’t like that because so many people can just whip out an outline in 10 minutes and do their show off the cuff and for some reason that is just not my strength. And so anyway, I was feeling rushed again today and I knew it was all in my head. I was pushing myself to hurry up and get this finished and I thought like once I’m

I’m done. I don’t have anything else to do today other than grab some lunch. I mean, I am pretty hungry. My stomach is already growling because I’m running a little bit late, but who cares? It’s just me. anyhow, just a very real example of how I’ve been feeling just the whole idea that I should be further along by now. And I know I’ve brought up this topic before and I don’t really want to focus today’s episode on being busy, but I do want to address it for a minute

we need to be intentional about setting a slower pace and creating more margin

I mean, what would life look like if we chose to linger with our family, growing bonds of connection? would it look like if we chose to linger over time with our friends, laughing or speaking life over each other? What would it look like if we lingered at church, building relationships or serving others, or even lingering in the presence of God, ministering to his heart, worshiping, adoring him, giving

to him instead of just moving on to the next thing that makes us feel good. Most women don’t create margin in their schedules. This is still a struggle for me. I’m raising my hand first. I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress in this area over the past few years, but it’s still a very real ⁓ tug, right? So I was listening to a podcast the other day and

when trying to learn more about

as I’m aging, you know, what’s going on with my body. And it was interesting, these two doctors, ⁓ they paused from their topic and they just moved into just the idea of how women, so many women have this false belief that they have to be all things to all people. And I can totally really, I’ve done that before,

Literally, they don’t know how to turn themselves off because there’s always something that’s got to get done. There’s always something that needs to be taken care of and that’s so bad for our health. The constant go, go, go and

Being too busy really messes with your body and your brain in so many different ways, like causes weight gain and brain fog and all sorts of issues I didn’t really want to go down that road. So I didn’t do a lot of research for today’s episode. But it I’ve recognized even especially in my own life that when I am being too busy, it affects so many other areas of my life and my health. It just.

really is interconnected in our whole being. And these two doctors were talking about how it’s so easy for men to just stop and turn themselves off. You know, the whole waffles and spaghetti thing. I don’t know if you’ve heard that, but men are like waffles. They just hop from box to box and they have a nothing box where they don’t think about anything. But women are more like spaghetti where like everything’s interconnected and they’re always thinking and it’s always it’s like never ending. And so I love that analogy. In fact, that’s a really great book if you’ve never read it just about the

of men and women but ⁓ women really need to start giving themselves permission and teaching themselves how to turn off more often

Honestly, I feel like that tendency or that tug to like constantly be busy I’m not sure that that’s ever gonna fully go away while we’re on this earth But we can learn how to resist it and we can learn how to Make ourselves rest and make ourselves slow down be quiet, you know ⁓

keep our brain from racing 500 miles a minute. So it might sound impossible, but it is in fact possible. there’s gonna be seasons where we’re more busy than others. That’s just the reality of life. But here’s the thing, if we can just be honest for a second, most of the time we’re doing this to ourselves.

The compulsion to go, go, go is actually a lie from the enemy. mean, Satan is chirping in our ear all the time, trying to get us off track and get our thinking ⁓ off track so that we won’t live life to the fullest. And God never meant for us to live at

the pace that we’ve been living in culture. That was never his intention. And yet we keep doing it because we think that we have to. The enemy has convinced us, or we’ve convinced ourselves for various reasons, that we have to keep moving at that super busy pace. And I’ll go into some of those reasons in a minute. But I’m still really surprised at how many

Believers I encounter that don’t intentionally take a Sabbath rest once a week, know The Bible was pretty clear that one day a week We’re supposed to set aside for rest and relaxing and spending time with God and focusing on him And yet so many people don’t make that a priority. They’re not carving out that time and setting the boundaries around it

and then they wonder why they’re so exhausted. It’s crazy. Like they feel like they have to fill up all seven days a week with something. And it’s just not true. I have found that when I make space for that Sabbath, which right now for me is usually on Sunday for Tim and I, um, when I

protect that time and keep other things from infiltrating my schedule, I am actually so surprised at how much energy I have the next day and how much I can get done through the rest of the week because I am showing up.

in better capacity because I got the rest that I need. And there’s so much science behind how that affects the body and the brain and all that stuff. Again, I didn’t go look into that because I really want to focus not so much on being busy, but why it’s so important to linger. So why do we live at such a hurried pace? I think the short answer is we believe a lot of lies. We have a lot of limiting thinking around what life should look like.

a couple of the really big lies that come up is that you truly believe there’s no other way to live. Like you literally cannot see how to cut things out of your schedule. I’ve so been there. I get it. It’s very discouraging when you look at everything on your to-do list and you’re like, all of this has to be done. Where is it going to fit?

But what I am discovering is that…

Well, those things may all need to be done. They maybe don’t need to all be done within a specific time frame. Some of them can maybe get pushed off. And there are certain things that can wait longer than we think they can. And so ⁓ when boundaries don’t seem possible, when there’s so much on your to do list and and it doesn’t match up with the space in your schedule, what if you could reframe it? What if you could tell yourself, no, it is really possible for me to get all this done and still have

free time. If you were to start talking to yourself about possibility and opportunity and positive language, how would that change? How would your schedule change? How would your time open up? It would require some stretching because

We have to think outside the box, but we’ve got to take some time to ponder what would that look like? And I would really challenge is just ask God what needs to be totally cut out and what needs to wait. And that’s a big deal because what he thinks is very different from what we think. His ways are not our ways, right? His ways are higher than our ways. And so he’s a lot smarter than us. And so I am learning to take my planner to him. I think I’ve shared this before. Like last fall, God told me to start letting him

him be in charge of my schedule and my planner and instead of me choosing what I’m going to get done every day and that has been quite a mind shift I’m telling you but it’s working. I’m surprised at how much I’m able to accomplish and how much less pressured I feel when I get God involved in my schedule. ⁓ We do have to be willing to let go so it is going to stretch you. It is going to take some reframing. You’re going to have to practice some things but

There is room in your schedule. There are ways to not be so busy. So I just wanna give you some hope. It is possible because I’m learning how to do it and I’ve seen others do it as well. for the second one,

that I think is really big is that we fall for the lie that the enemy feeds us that being busy is better. And this is such a huge draw for so many people, especially in the corporate world. They were busy like it’s a badge of honor. And I did this for a long time and it’s kind of gross thinking about it now. But I used to think it was people would think I’m.

people would admire me for how busy I am and how much I’m able to accomplish. And that is so not true. I remember one time God told me that busy is unattractive. It’s unattractive to him, it’s unattractive to others. And so I really had to reframe that so that my goal was to put my time and energy into the things that matter, that really matter in the long run or really matter to the Lord instead of

trying to earn people’s approval or admiration.

And then that brings us to the question like, what is it that is causing you to crave that admiration from other people? Maybe there’s something in your heart that needs to be healed so that you’re not wearing busy like a badge and feeling like it’s a place of honor to be super busy and super productive because it’s really not. That’s a lie. So something to think about, ⁓ your motives behind why you are so busy.

Another really big one I think is so many women feel a lot of shame because they think they’re supposed to do all the things and if you don’t do all the things then you’re not good enough. This is a huge lie that the enemy feeds us and unfortunately we believe it way too much. You feel like you’re valuable and you’re useful when you’re getting all these things done and you get kudos and so that feeds you and you’re like I must be doing something right because people really appreciate this and the thing is doing things out of obligation because

you think it’s your duty,

So sometimes we do need to do things out of obligation, things that are our duty. Like we are supposed to take care of our family to a certain extent, but there’s boundaries, there’s lines. And so how far are you taking that? Is it really your duty to do this thing or that thing for your family? Is that really your job? ⁓ I remember talking to a mom once about doing her teenagers laundry and I was like, why are you doing their laundry? Like I made my kids learn how to wash their own clothes in middle school because they’re

perfectly capable in middle school of doing something like that and then I can take that time that I used to do their laundry and focus it on something else.

So my friend felt obligated, like it was her duty to do her teenager’s laundry when really they were fully capable. And so when she learned to let go of that and stop putting that pressure on herself, it really made a difference for her.

Along with this is the idea that a lot of people don’t know how to say no because they don’t want to upset other people. They don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want ⁓ to people to be disappointed in them. They don’t want to let other people down. And again, depending on the situation and the specific issue, this is a bit of a red flag because your purpose on earth was not to please other people. God put you on here to accomplish his assignment. So what?

other people think about what you do or don’t do really is irrelevant. And so I don’t say that lightly. This is a struggle for me too. I still, you know, really want to make people happy and not upset people by saying no. But it comes down to our effort.

We only have so much time and effort in the day. So we need to learn how to say no to the things that are not for us and say yes to the things that are. God never told us to live according to other people’s desires and expectations. Being motivated by a desire for approval is not healthy and it’s not godly. So learning how to step back and say, okay, why am I feeling shame over saying no to this thing or not getting this thing done? Like what rules am I trying to put on myself to say that this has to happen a certain way?

And the more you practice that kind of reframing and asking yourself those questions, the more you’ll see that you have a wrong motive behind why you’re so busy. those are some things to think about, like wrong reasons why we’ve got to be rushing, rushing, doing, And the truth is, when you rush, you miss out. And we don’t think that we are, but we truly are. And here’s what I mean by that.

So just pause for a second. I want you to take in a deep breath, slow, and then let it out. And then I wanna talk for a second about what it means to linger.

So what does it look like to linger? To linger is to stay in a place longer than necessary because of a reluctance to leave. It’s to spend a long time doing something.

⁓ It’s when you do an activity in a slow manner. So I don’t know about you, when I finish one task, I’m always rushing off to do the next one. I don’t even take sometimes. I don’t even stop to like be happy with myself for what I accomplished or congratulate myself on the win. And I think a lot of women have that same tendency. So I’m working on that, like pause in between each activity, but.

⁓ Lingering is very different from procrastinating. So let me just point this out. Procrastination is when you’re avoiding something that you don’t really want to do and it always leaves you feeling sort of icky and stressed. But lingering is totally opposite. To linger is to enjoy the moment. It’s to…

really sit in a place of appreciation and gratitude. When you linger, you actually gain peace, joy, contentment. It’s honestly a form of self-care. And to linger doesn’t have to be hours and hours. To linger can even just be an extra few minutes, depending on the situation. So when you’re rushing, don’t you feel the opposite?

You just feel more stressed. All you get is a headache. All you get is feeling frazzled and nobody likes that feeling, right? But if you were to pause more often, linger more often, what kind of peace and joy and contentment would that bring into your life? How would that make you a better version of yourself if you weren’t so focused on doing that next task? So let’s pause for a second and think about this.

What if you closed your eyes more often just to savor those last few sips of coffee? Or when you’re outside, you just stop for a minute and savor the feel of the sunshine on your face.

It’s really easy to linger over things like when you’re enjoying a hot shower and that water’s spraying all over your shoulders or when you’re listening to your favorite song in the car and so you hang out just a little bit longer so you can sing the whole thing or when you’re dating that someone special and you just can’t seem to say goodbye because you’re having such a good time or I know a big one for me when my cat is snuggled up on my lap I don’t want to get up and do anything. I’m just enjoying that snuggle time and so there’s some

Sometimes.

where it’s easy to linger, but a lot of times it’s not. And I just want to open your mind to thinking about the ways that you could linger more often and get that contentment, get that peace, get that joy, you know, rest in more moments of gratitude and appreciation. Like what if you lingered at the dinner table when your family is all gathered together or you’re out with friends? What if you just lingered and let the conversation go a little bit longer? Or maybe it’s bedtime and you’re putting your kids

Kids down for the night I mean sometimes I would be like so eager to get out of that bedroom because I had so many things I wanted to do or I was so tired I wanted to go to bed But I learned that hanging out with them for a little bit longer really enriched our relationship and so it was really important to linger in those moments when I just wanted to leave because I was so busy or even I think of like Going to the zoo or aquarium. I used to like get bored with that.

In fact, there were times when I’ve even said like I don’t want to go to the zoo. I’ve seen all the things. There’s nothing new to see. And what I love is like when I go with my husband, he really opens my eyes to looking at creatures in a new way. Like look at how God created the fin on that fish or look at how God created the nose or the paw of that animal. Like my husband’s really good at ⁓ helping me see the wonder of God’s creation. And so now I really

Enjoy, you know going to zoos and aquariums and it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen a dolphin or a you know monkey or a Lion there’s always something to be appreciated Every time I go and see it again, and ⁓ I didn’t used to think like that. I used to be like this is old news I’ve already seen it I’ve already done it but when I learn to linger and enjoy the moment it really makes it so much more special ⁓ and then you know same thing when you’re out

in nature like there’s so much beauty around us when we when you get outside and you see something pause for a minute when you see that sunrise or that ⁓ waterfall or you know whatever it is pause for a minute linger spend some time enjoying it and appreciating it but then take that a little bit further what about your time with the Lord

I don’t know about you, but there’s been far too many times where I am eager to get out of church and just go run my errands on Sunday and go do something much more fun than sitting in a pew or listening to a sermon from the preacher. And what were to happen if I were to linger and appreciate the moment more?

What about being too rushed in your morning devotions or your bedtime prayer time? Like how much are you really getting out of that? Are you actually having a meaningful relationship with the Lord when you’re in a hurry to do your Bible reading or ⁓ say a quick prayer so you can check the box?

I know for me, when I rush through those moments, I don’t enjoy it and I don’t connect with the Lord in a meaningful way. And then a lot of times I feel guilty later because I’m like, I really wish I would have given God more of my attention. So how can you slow down? How can you give God more of your attention? How can you carve out ⁓ time to spend with him that’s more meaningful?

Think about this, what could happen if you chose to linger more often with God? What are the possibilities, not only of your relationship with him, but the possibilities of how that would affect your life if you spent more time slowing down and enjoying your conversation with him, enjoying what he shows you in the Bible?

we need to learn to slow down more often. We need to enjoy the small moments. We need to stop putting pressure on ourselves to perform and do it all. We need to set boundaries, create margin, learn to linger. Don’t.

Just do it out of obligation. Do it for your own physical health, your own future. Do it for your kids and your family. You cannot be your best self if you’re constantly exhausted and empty. Do it for the Lord. He doesn’t want you to live such a rushed pace of life. So as you go about this week, explore the depths of this final thought. What would it look like in your life right now if you were to linger more often?

I think that’ll look different for each of us because we’re in different seasons. for you, today even, where could you linger and make life more meaningful? Bless you, friend. Have a great week.