Fall has always been my favorite time of year. Sure, we could talk about the colors of the leaves and the pumpkin spice lattes (I am a fan of both), but as a compulsive hoodie-wearer my greatest joy comes in the form of that first real temperature drop at the end of summer.

One of the strange things I’ve noticed about myself is that the transition to fall is always accompanied by a deep sense of inspiration and the overwhelming urge to create. That urge has come late this year — it’s nearly mid-October and the weather has been very summer-like until the last few days. But now we’re easing into fall and I’ve been noticing the changes. The days are getting shorter, the jackets and beanies are coming out, the leaves are in fact changing color, and the benevolent dictatorship of the pumpkin spice latte is in full swing.

For our family, fall is also a time of slowing down. The ceaseless string of summer activities winds down, the kids go back to school, and we all begin to settle back into a routine. There are still many things to be done, but life becomes more rhythmic.

Around this time last year, I read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. In it, John Mark unpacks Dallas Willard’s words of wisdom to John Ortberg:

“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

— Dallas Willard

At that time, those words spoke to a deep longing in my soul. In the midst of work, kids, a marriage, church, a side hustle, and a thousand other things pulling me in different directions, I felt a desperate need to slow down, catch my breath, and sort out the things that actually matter from the things that culture tells us should matter — money, status, notoriety, etc.

So I started the painful-yet-freeing process of eliminating hurry from my life. I had to take a brutally honest look at who I am versus who I want to be. I didn’t like what I saw: I was selfish, materialistic, always chasing that next shiny new thing. It was perfectly reflected in the laundry list of things that devoured my time.

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”

— W. Edwards Deming

It was far cry from who I wanted to be. First and foremost, I wanted to be a person at peace. Hurry is the antithesis of peace. Hurry induces stress, anxiety, and irritability, and even after the hurry is over it can leave you with a sense of restlessness. A lifestyle of hurry can even foster what some experts call “hurry sickness”, an emotional state where the pressure to hurry (with all of its negative impacts) becomes constant, even when hurry is totally unnecessary.

Peace, conversely, is in many ways the antithesis of hurry. It is a shedding of stress and anxiety. Merriam-Webster calls it “freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts.”

In our culture of hurry, slowing down is essential to peace. At Foundation Church, we encourage all to practice Sabbath. It is an active choice to stop the frenzied pace of modern life; to slow down and focus on the things that matter: God, family, the activities and relationships that build us up.

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Mark 2:27

In music, there are many elements that make up a song. One crucial element that often goes unappreciated is space. A song that features a constant barrage of notes can be impressive, but without space it feels incomplete and after a while can even induce stress. When you leave space, the song opens up and can engage the listener on a deeper level.

Make space in your life for God, and the important relationships in your life. Engage them on a deeper level. Culture tells us that meaning is found in acquisition and achievement, and yet these things often lead to burnout and emptiness. True meaning is found when you love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind. Then, love your neighbor as yourself.