I’m In a Hurry and Don’t Know Why
Yesterday was a beautiful day here in eastern Kentucky. I spent a couple of hours photographing the gorgeous fall foliage along Highway 23 in Pike and Letcher County. I wouldn’t call this autumn a great year for foliage but there certainly are a number of beautiful spots, as you can see from the pictures I’ve included here. One of the things that intrigued me yesterday while I was standing on the side of the road was how no one else stopped and looked. People were zooming by at breakneck speed. I wondered if they even noticed the incredible beauty that was there on both sides of the highway. Several years ago the country group Alabama had a song which repeated the words “I’m in a hurry and don’t know why” several times. It would seem that could be our world’s theme song. Yes, we all seem to be in a hurry and I’m not sure we even know why.
I have no doubt that our hurriedness is causing us to miss a lot of wonderful blessings. There’s no way the people who drove by me yesterday going 60 miles per hour could have seen the things I did when I stopped my car and got out to look. In fact, even after I stopped and looked things over it took me a while to see some of the compositions I ended up photographing. Being in a hurry is not conducive to good photography; nor is it good for seeing and experiencing God’s blessings in Creation and the rest of our lives. Somehow, someway, we have got to learn to slow down.
As you read the Gospels you get the impression that Jesus never got in a hurry. There were a number of occasions when people tried to get him to do certain things and he either refused or said it wasn’t time yet. Jesus definitely marched to the beat of a different drummer. He did not let the world dictate his pace. Instead, he let his heavenly Father do that.
I may do a decent job of slowing down to capture beautiful images with my camera but in other areas of my life I am doing far too much rushing. I multitask far more than I should and I hurry to and fro when there’s really no reason to. Like many other people I need to slow down. I need to quit letting the world dictate my pace and listen more closely for the beat of the Creator’s drum. How about you?
–Chuck