Rediscovering Peace in a Rushed World: The Importance of Slowing Down

This morning while doing my hair I slowed down. I moisturized each curl intentionally and didn’t rush the process. What will come from that will be a beautiful crafted curly frow. I feel… that is how God would like to handle us, but we’re moving way too fast.

 I fear the enemy makes us move faster than God ever ordained.

Think about it. Urgency that isn’t from God will still get you moving, it just moves you in the wrong rhythm. It convinces you that rest is falling behind, that stillness is wasted time, that if you slow down for even a weekend, everything will fall apart without you. That’s not healthy conviction! That’s pressure dressed up as productivity. Pressure like that doesn’t come from a Father who tells us to be still and know that He is God.

Be Still, and Know that I Am God!

Psalm 46:10

In May I had the pleasure of attending a weekend spiritual retreat. What I found there was the joy in slowing down.

Not relief. Not just rest… Joy.

I didn’t realize how much I’d been running until I finally stopped. There’s a kind of clarity that only shows up when the noise does — when the calendar isn’t calling your name, when nobody needs you in the next five minutes, when the only assignment is to be still and listen. I spent that weekend remembering what my own thoughts sound like without a deadline attached to them. I remembered what God’s voice sounds like when I’m not trying to out-shout it with busyness.

It made me think about how rare that’s become. Not just for me — for all of us. We live in a culture that treats “speed” like a virtue. Faster responses, faster results, faster everything. Instant Gratification! Somewhere in all that speed, I believe the enemy finds his opening.

God’s pace will never match the world’s pace. He took His time forming the earth, He let seasons pass before fulfilling promises, He let Jesus walk instead of run…there is nothing in scripture that suggests God is in a hurry.

That weekend reminded me that slowing down isn’t a luxury. It’s a return. A return to a rhythm that was always meant to be mine before the world convinced me otherwise. I came home from that retreat different; not because anything dramatic happened, but because I remembered what peace actually feels like when it isn’t rushed. I now find myself protecting that pace on purpose. I say no to things that move me too fast, I think before making decisions and I schedule uninterrupted time.

I am building my life in stillness instead of waiting for stillness to find me.

If you’re reading this exhausted, moving fast because it feels like the only option please be reminded the urgency you’re feeling might not be from God at all. If you’re suffocating please know, His pace has room to breathe.

Slow down. Not because you’re behind, because you were never meant to run this fast in the first place.

Walking slower and freer,

Starr