The Pace of Being Known

Just the other day I found myself frantically updating my email feed hoping to find a “your products have shipped” notification with a tracking number so that I can know exactly when I could expect my brand new pair of Griffey Air Max shoes. There it is, I was filled with joy as the email came through. I would spend way more time checking that tracking info over the next couple of days than I’d be willing to admit. Finally, I received the “out for delivery” notification. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? I thought about it off and on all day anticipating that I would find my package on my porch when I got home.  I returned home, but no package, so I waited and waited and it never showed! I was disappointed, I was border-line angry. I checked my email to see what went wrong, and there was the notification from USPS that a delivery had been attempted but there wasn’t a safe place to leave the package, which is odd because we’ve never had this problem in the past. I noticed the zip code reference in the email was not our zip code. The next morning I called the Post Office to see what was happening and they communicated that my shoes were put on the wrong truck, my heart sank. Immediately my mind flooded with all kinds of thoughts; would they ever make it to my house? Do they care that I timed the purchase just right to be able to purchase them before they sold out? Do they know how long I had waited for them to even be made available to purchase? Why can’t they get their crap together? The lady on the phone was kind and patient as she went to check on where my shoes were and I was short, not kind and not patient. She came to the phone and communicated that she had seen the package, and that it would arrive that day with our normal mail. Immediately my demeanor changed and I apologized for my shortness and thanked her for her help!

You may have had a similar experience. Sometimes I find this emotional roller coaster play out over an email or text message that I sent out. At times when new episodes of my favorite show are expected to drop. Sometimes at a restaurant when I place my complicated order, etc. At times it plays out when I arrive at a meeting on time and the person I’m meeting shows up late. In these times I can be quick to project my frustration onto the person, the network, the employee at the restaurant or the customer service agent on the other end of the phone, but I think they tell a deeper story, a story about me. Perhaps even a deeper story about us. We live in such an instantaneous world. Amazon Prime and other companies offer such fast shipping that we can order almost anything and receive it within just a couple of hours or days. With what seems like 1,000 streaming platforms we can watch just about anything we want instantly. The internet has given us the ability to have all of the world’s content at our fingertips 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Our meals are fast, our conversations are short. If we’re honest, many of us spend much more time cultivating our social media presence and relationships than we do cultivating our ability to be present in our relationships. Our attention spans have grown smaller, while our anxiety has grown larger. Is this 24 hours a day 7 days a week pace of life working? Is it truly getting us what we want out of life? Is it meeting the deepest needs of our soul for relationship, for presence? Is it providing the avenues for the presence with God, with ourselves and with others that our souls truly crave? Has this fast paced life full of instant gratification made you feel more at peace with God or anxious in this world? Has it made you feel more known or more isolated? 

Many of us have several thousand friends on Facebook and several thousand followers on Instagram. Have Snapchat, LinkedIn, Tik-Tok, Youtube,  and whatever social media platforms you leverage to “stay connected” made you feel more connected or more lonely? Many other people have written, filmed and produced content about the “dangers” of social media, that however is not necessarily my intention. These things have served me well as tools to further my work, to stay up to date with what is happening in the lives of people that I know or admire. They have brought me so much content, some of which God has used to change me and grow me. I even met one of my deepest friends when he was offering up a second copy of a book that he owned on Facebook. Amazon, McDonald’s (well maybe McDonald’s is a problem, but I’m using them to represent the fast food industry as a whole since they were the first), InstaCart, Facebook and so on are not necessarily the problem but they have conditioned us towards a pace of life that is always on the move and one in which provides us instant gratification for most of the necessary things in life leaving us not able to wait on much of anything, leaving us feeling disappointed by things that shouldn’ t hold as much power of us, and leaving us feeling disconnected in the shadows of being more “connected” digitally than we’ve ever been! It is certainly a dilemma, at least for those of us living in the west. It plays out in our relationships with God, ourselves and each other. A culture of consumers has been birthed within the Church. Our goods are cheaply made by people we don’t know and come from places we’ve never been. What can we do about it? 

Several years ago a friend of mine over a cup of coffee encouraged me to watch a documentary about an American Pastor who spent time studying and pastoring in the countryside of Scotland. It was called, Godspeed: The Pace of Being Known. It chronicles his experience of pastoring a small group of people in a very small town and the ways that his pace of life would have to drastically change so that he could be known by these people and so that he could know these people. I remember it being challenging to watch when I first watched it and I’ve revisited and recommended it often to others who feel burned out by the pace of life that they are living, especially within the work of ministry. It’s caused me to reflect on the ways of Jesus and His pace of life and ministry while he walked this earth. It’s helped me to slow down, to pursue depth and to seek a pace of life that affords me the opportunity to know and be known. If I’m honest about my growth in this area it has been more minimal than I want or would like to admit. My feelings and behavior regarding the pair of shoes mentioned above are a more honest reflection of where I’m at. 

Even still, I’m learning day by day and moment by moment the importance of being present with God and myself and how that equips me and gives me opportunities to be present with others. I still spend more time on social media than what is probably healthy for me, but I'm growing in my awareness of how that is actually hindering the type of depth in friendships and relationships that my soul craves and that I desire tremendously. I’m considering more and more what the pace of being known may actually look like in my life. What needs to be removed from my life to create space for the things I truly want and need? I honestly wish I had more answers and conclusions than I do, but I'm confident that they’ll come in God’s timing and not mine. I’m learning to be ok with that. To engage with life day by day. Do I have long term plans and goals? Sure, but I’m even holding them with more of an open hand than I ever had before and trying to engage day by day with open hands to the Lord ready to receive whatever it is that He has for me that day. By God’s grace, I am just beginning to see that interruptions are usually invitations from the Lord into knowing and being known. By God’s grace, I am just beginning to learn that all delays are God’s delays inviting me to wait upon Him instead of anxiously rushing about life missing out on what He is doing. By God’s grace, I’m learning to slow down, to pay attention, to be more curious with myself and others. By doing so I’ve seen enemies become acquaintances, and I’ve seen acquaintances become friends. 

Life really is about relationships. We have a deep desire within our souls to know and be known by God, ourselves and other people. Does your current pace of life make space for that? I’m not old by any stretch of imagination but I do remember a day when you had to go into the grocery store to get your food. I remember life before broadly available internet and smartphones. I remember a day when you would have to drive to the bank, walk up to the teller and deposit your paycheck. Life was slower, and I wonder if it afforded us more opportunities to truly know and be known than we take advantage of know? I’m encouraged by the resurgence of craftsman and makers and the way it causes us to appreciate the time it took to make things that we use and enjoy. I’m encouraged by the resurgence in our city of good food, beer and coffee as these things create space for relationships. I’m encouraged by the ways a slower pace of life and ministry provides opportunities to be present with God, myself and others. I’m considering what adjustments I can make to create more space for what truly matters and not give so much space towards things that don’t matter much at all in the end! What adjustments could you make? What are some ways that you could slow down your pace of life? What are some ways that you could intentionally pursue presence with God, yourself and others? What are some ways you could create more and consume less? What meals each week could you eat with other people? What services or social media platforms could you delete or use less? The pace of being known is often much slower than we live but it’s a worthy pursuit! 

Submitted by: Matt Korte