I am not much of a movie person, unlike my wife. She loves movies, and God often speaks to her through profound revelations through films. But occasionally, God speaks to me through a movie, and this was one of them, teaching me about patience.
Learning Through Patience: A Scene from ‘Fearless’
In the movie Fearless, this quiet, powerful scene is where Jet Li’s character, Huo Yuanjia, is out planting rice with the villagers. He starts in his usual style—quick and competitive, trying to outdo everyone else. This has a back story, but you must watch the movie. Here, amidst the calm and unhurried pace of the others, his speed feels out of place and awkward.
A villager, Yueci, ends up redoing his sloppy work. This simple act is a wake-up call for Yuanjia. It’s a beautiful moment that shows him (and us) that real strength isn’t about being the fastest or the first; it’s about being mindful, taking your time, and really connecting with what you’re doing and with those around you.
This scene perfectly captures the essence of growth, not just in creation but also in our lives. It’s not always about pushing hard; sometimes, it’s about slowing down, stepping back, and learning from everyday life’s quiet and subtle wisdom. It’s a gentle but profound lesson on the power of patience and humility. (Check out the scene below)
Theological Insights on Modern Hurry
The film echoes the biblical opposition to the culture of hurry. Richard Foster, one of my favourite theologians and sages, said, “In our contemporary society, our Adversary (a biblical title for the devil) majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in ‘muchness’ and ‘manyness’, he will rest satisfied” (p.13). Slow living and slow productivity counter modern society’s hustle and efficiency culture. A journalist once asked theologian Thomas Merton to diagnose the leading spiritual disease of our time; Merton gave a one-word answer: efficiency.
Now, crowds and efficiency are not all bad. Don’t get me wrong. Jesus spent time in crowds, he had patience with crowds, but the Gospels also tell us that he often withdrew from the crowds (frequently) to be alone, pray, and spend time with his Heavenly Father. And efficiency is not all bad. We can be efficient with tasks… but not with people. Have you ever tried to be efficient whilst on a date with your spicy señorita? She will pick up on this pretty quickly, maybe lose her patience, and it is a major turn-off… not that I would know from experience or anything…
The Virtue of Slow Living: Rejecting Modern Hurry for Spiritual Depth
In his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer discusses a connection he has noted between followers of Jesus and a slow pace of life: “I’ve noticed that a lot of the greatest followers of Jesus I know—mentors, spiritual directors, older and wiser Jesusy folk—pretty much all walk slow. And it’s not because they are dull or out of shape or have asthma. It’s on purpose. Deliberate. The by-product of years of apprenticeship under the easy yoke. Not long ago, I was in San Francisco with this older guy who is following Jesus in some really cool ways. We decided to take a stroll rather than sit for coffee. We had a few hours scheduled just to talk and with nowhere to be, but I found myself getting annoyed with his pace. It barely qualified as walking. He moseyed. Any time he had something extra deep to say, he’d fully stop, turn to me, and say it slowly. I found myself tapping my feet and feeling all agitated: Come on, hurry up. Then I realized, where in the world am I trying to get to so fast? We literally have no place to be! Aah…” (p.234).
Personal Reflections and Recovery
As you probably know from my last blog post, I have been slowed down, not by choice, but by circumstance. Tearing my Achilles tendon and getting surgery done to repair it has slowed me way down. The recovery time is 4-6 months! Yikes! I am finishing up… only week 1 post-surgery. This has tested my patience. I still have a long way to go. He is teaching me valuable life lessons, such as moving slowly, patience, and depending on God and others.
12-Step Recovery and Spiritual Dependence
Someone close to me recently completed the 12 Steps of AA, and the following story resonated with me. It comes from Staton’s book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools.
“So we get to step two,” CJ announced, “which turns out to be all about believing in and depending on a power greater than yourself.”
CJ owed his few months of sobriety mostly to an AA group he had joined. He was recounting to me a recent conversation with Owen, his sponsor.
If you’re not familiar with the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, it has a lot of “God” language in it. Most 12-step groups, for the sake of inclusivity, have adopted the language of “higher power.” “Hey, man, here’s the deal,” CJ explained to Owen. “I want to get sober. I’m committed to the program, but I’m out on God. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m in for everything else, but please don’t try to talk me into some cosmic therapist to help me say ‘no thanks’ to a gin and tonic.”
That’s a fair summary of how plenty of people feel about prayer. There’s been an Eastern spiritual renaissance in the modern West of late, particularly in urban areas among the educated class of emerging generations. Practices like Buddhist mindfulness, meditative emptying, yoga (even yoga accompanied by chanting in an unknown language to an unknown god)—anything that gets anyone to some elusive “centered state”—are on the table.
So, yeah, I’ll pray, many subconsciously think—if by “prayer” we’re talking exclusively about something happening in me, some kind of spiritual meditation. I can get on board with that. But actual communication with a divine being? A divine being intelligent enough to have created me, everything I know, and everything I experience? Come on. If such a being exists, the idea that he (or she or they) would be at my beck and call for conversation is pretty absurd.
So a couple days later, Owen calls up CJ, just as the workday is drawing to a close, and says, “I’m in front of your place in my car. Come on out and get in the car.”
“Where we goin’?” CJ asks.
“Just get in.”
They drive deep into Brooklyn, the car finally backing into a vacant spot with an expired meter along the Coney Island boardwalk. The two of them walk out onto the beach together on a brisk November day. They sit down on the sand next to each other and just look, watching the sun set over the horizon, the gray-blue water extending far beyond what they can see. As the cold wind whips against their faces and cuts through their jackets, they just look, neither of them speaking for a minute or two.
Eventually, Owen breaks the silence with a question: “See anything here more powerful than you are?”
CJ hesitates and then says slowly, “Yeah.”
“Great,” Owen said. “Start there.”
Owen drove CJ where he wasn’t going on his own to show him what he wasn’t seeing for himself. “See anything more powerful than you?” In other words, “Can you see yourself—your tiny self—in the midst of this vast expanse beyond you? Can you see yourself from God’s perspective for just a moment?” Owen was introducing CJ to the stillness and wonder from which all prayer emerges. Prayer doesn’t begin with us; it begins with God. It doesn’t start with speaking; it starts with seeing (p.34-35).
As Philip Yancey writes, “Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God’s point of view” (p.29).
In my experience of being injured and slowing down… almost to a complete stop, I have sought to see my reality from God’s point of view. This is not easy. It is frustrating (patience is hard for me). I prefer to think… I’m the centre of my universe, the main character, and I should get my way. Injury has forced me into more introspection. More solitude and silence. “Solitude is the furnace of transformation,” says Henri Nouwen. “Without solitude, we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self… Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter—the struggle against the compulsions of the false self and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self.”
I have indeed experienced the struggle of letting go of the false self in the furnace of transformation. I am still encountering God and allowing the slow process of transformation to the substance of my new self to begin to form. The slow process requires patience and persistence.
The last connection I want to make is that God is knowable and personal. We will inevitably begin walking, moving, and living at his pace by getting to know him personally.
Michael Zigarelli of Messiah University did a five-year study of twenty thousand Christians in the United States and identified “busyness” as the number one distraction from life with God. He summarizes his own research with this great conclusion:
“It may be the case that (1) Christians are assimilating to a culture of busyness, hurry and overload, which leads to (2) God becoming more marginalized in Christians’ lives, which leads to (3) a deteriorating relationship with God, which leads to (4) Christians becoming even more vulnerable to adopting secular assumptions about how to live, which leads to (5) more conformity to a culture of busyness, hurry and overload. And then the cycle begins again.”
I’m not sure if I’m the only one who had to read that last section a few times. Wow! This has been the reality in my life at different seasons… and I have watched it play out in the lives of others around me. I’m recovering from this reality. Busyness, hurry, and overload create a vicious cycle, a very difficult whirlwind to escape. We must pay attention, develop patience, and take the first exit if we ever find ourselves there.
Stanton’s Observations on the Garden of Eden Temptation
In his book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, Stanton made an interesting observation regarding the temptation in the Garden of Eden between Satan and Eve. “There’s something else going on here, something technical but important. In Genesis 2, God is repeatedly called Yahweh Elohim (“LORD God,” in English). But every time the serpent refers to God, he just says Elohim (“God”), the abstract name for divinity, dropping the personal. It’s calling someone by their title instead of their name—Doctor instead of Susan, Professor instead of Darrell, Sir instead of Dad. It’s respectful, but distant, depersonalized. The more intimacy in a relationship, the less likely someone is to be known by a title. An MD’s spouse doesn’t call her “Doctor”; he calls her by her first name.”
My kids don’t call me “Mr. Bolton”; they call me “Dad.”
Prayer and walking with God at his pace and embracing his rhythms begins with knowing him… and before that, we must believe that he can be known. This requires time and patience. I call God “Abba” when I am praying. This is likely the word Jesus used when talking to God, his Heavenly Father, which translates to “Dad” or even “Daddy.” I know that God can be known. I have experienced this. I want to know him more. And I want to learn, to learn, and experience a life of unhurried grace.
Call to Action:
Are you caught in the cycle of busyness, or are you stepping into the unhurried rhythms of grace? Share your journey towards embracing a slower, more intentional life with us. Let’s encourage each other to seek a deeper connection with God by reducing the hurry in our lives.
Reflect on areas of your life where you might be rushing unnecessarily. What steps can you take to embrace a slower pace?
Feel free to share your reflections and/or comments below.
References:
Comer, J. M. (2019). The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World. WaterBrook.
Foster, R. (1978). Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. Harper & Row.
Nouwen, H. (1981). The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry. Harper & Row.
Staton, T. (2021). Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools. Zondervan.
Yancey, P. (2006). Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? Zondervan.
Zigarelli, M. (2008). Distracted from God: A five-year, worldwide study. Christianity 9 to 5. Retrieved from www.christianity9to5.org/distracted-from-god.