Sabbath Devotional :: God Speed

Have you ever wished, like me, that you could watch General Conference in real time on double speed, or have an express lane at the temple? In our hurried, efficient world, I find myself wanting to just check things off the list and move on. However, a recent read, Reconnected by Carlos Whittaker, prompted me to think more carefully about this instinct. The author is a social media influencer accustomed to a lot of screen time, and he spent seven weeks at both a monastery and Amish farm without his phone in order to reconnect with God and himself. Although not of those faith traditions, Whittaker grew in their rhythms of devotion and labor and prayer and community. He was able to reframe his life and relationships and come to a better balance through this process.

Whittaker pointed out that all of Christ’s ministry was done on foot, at about three miles per hour. Think about that — the Gospels took place at 3 mph, even when it was a journey of hundreds of miles to walk to Jerusalem for Passover. Some have calculated that Jesus likely walked more than three thousand miles in his lifetime!

During this most recent Conference, Presiding Bishop Budge highlighted a similar theme with a powerful verse in Isaiah: “For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength” (30:15). He concluded his talk with this relevant counsel: “Paradoxically, helping God hasten His work of salvation and exaltation may require that we slow down. Being always in motion may be adding to the commotion in our lives and robbing us of the peace we seek.”

Since quarantine patterns of 2020, I’ve spent more time walking in my neighborhood, and walking allows me to notice things I miss just driving by in the car. I stop at the little free library and see if there are any new titles, or if anyone has taken my discarded book. I smell the honeysuckle, and cheer on the neighbor kids playing catch. I try to identify clouds and trees, and pick up a lost hat to place on a mailbox. Walking allowed Jesus to notice Zaccheus in the tree, and find the woman at the well. As we zoom past things in our modern life, perhaps we’re not traveling at God’s speed. After all, God waited eons for creation to advance, and centuries for the gospel to be restored. My patience for earthly problems to be solved and for prayers to be answered must seem childishly shortsighted.

The last few months I’ve served as a new ordinance worker in the Draper temple. Like Whittaker’s experiment on a shorter timetable, those afternoons are the longest I’ve gone without checking my phone in years (except overnight). I’m accustomed to making notes, checking calendars, being available to my family, responding immediately, sharing, communicating, and looking things up. You never have to wonder anymore, you can just Google it.

But from 1-6 pm on Tuesdays, I do just have to wonder — and remember, and even be occasionally bored. I look people in the eyes, and am present for each interaction. I notice the art on the walls, and the carpet and upholstery patterns, and everyone’s varied white shoes. I glimpse celestial moments and angelic whisperings. It is a wonderful opportunity to be a holder of stories, of experiences, of emotions. I’ve witnessed special reunions, and revelatory moments, and heavenly touches. Moving at God speed allows me to focus on individuals and moments in new ways. It gives me time with myself, with others, and with divinity. The world’s clamor quiets as I help an elderly sister find a Band-Aid, a bathroom, and her husband. Perhaps speeding up Conference and temple sessions isn’t really the point at all.

It has been years since I’ve worn a wristwatch. I found a white one to join me on this new journey (because being outside of normal time does not eliminate a very precisely coordinated temple schedule). Each week I pull it out of my temple bag, and I push the stopper in to start my “temple time.” At the end of my shift, I pull the stopper out to save the battery between weeks. It feels like a symbolic act to be starting and stopping my God time, living at God speed. When my focus is on mortal time, divinity is blurred. But when I can blur time in this way, heaven is more sharply in focus. I’m praying some of that tempo seeps into my being and spills into my everyday life and interactions.

Even while having the most important work to do, Jesus took time out to rest, to withdraw from crowds, to grieve, to pray, to find isolated locations for communion with his Father. He visited the temple, He went into the mountains alone. “So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed” (Luke 5:16 NKJV). “And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately” (Mark 6:31-32). He set boundaries, and set an example by doing this.

How do you recalibrate and find ways to live at God speed?