“Three-Mile-An-Hour God”
FROM SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR, TAYLOR BRENCHAK
A few years ago in a seminary class, I read something that referred to Jesus as the “three-mile-an-hour God.” Jesus could have walked as fast as he wanted to. He could have gotten from one place to another in no time at all, but he walked at our pace. This was a choice made in love. Jesus walked slowly in order to walk with us.
These days, we tend to move fast. We are BUSY & we have places to be! Things to do! We can’t move faster than we are physically able, but we’ll certainly try! I work with college students, & this is truer than ever. I’ve never seen a group of students who were busier or had less time than these. It makes it challenging to get a quick meeting in, let alone get to any kind of discipleship or deeper work (& don’t even get me started on coordinating schedules to try meeting with more than one student at the same time).
It takes a whole lot of effort to find space for significant time together. But I wonder if the very idea that someone would try to make time for them, beyond just asking for them to produce more, is perhaps hard to accept. It is not part of their regular experience.
One of the primary reasons I chose to become a spiritual director is because I so badly want for people to be aware that they are seen, known, & loved. If Jesus cares for us this way, choosing to slow down & be with us, are we not invited to care for others in that same way? We are both made in his image, sent to reflect him to others, AND called to see others as made in his image. Someone taking the time to care for you, to listen intentionally, & make space for you is countercultural. It disrupts the movement of the world around us. The image of the three-mile-an-hour God comes to mind frequently. God COULD have moved quicker. It might have been more efficient in getting from place to place if he did. But Jesus moved slowly so that he could be with people. In doing so, he saw people. These people experienced not only what it was like to be seen, but to be seen by God. Jesus saw the sick, the marginalized, the desperate, the overlooked, & he taught his followers to see them too.
In such a busy culture, slowing down in order to listen can easily take a backseat. If that’s the case, slowing down in order to be heard isn’t something we, or students, are prepared for. I’ve frequently noticed that when given the opportunity to be vulnerable, people freeze up & don’t quite know what to do with it. If we live in a world where our thoughts, longings, questions, etc., might have been overlooked & taken for granted in moments where someone did not make space to listen, then it makes sense that we might try to protect ourselves & feel discouraged from sharing again. I have certainly experienced this.
When I think of the deepest parts of myself, I see them in an underwater cave, heavily guarded & hard to get to. When I do choose to share those things, it feels like I’m reaching so deep & working hard to pull those things up, then timidly handing them over to someone else with the hope that they will hold them with care. When these little pieces of myself are met with disregard, it pushes them deeper, strengthens the layer of protection, & makes me not want to put in the work to dig them up & give them to someone again. This is what can happen if we give into the temptation to rush along with the rest of the world, & not slow down & listen to the deep layers of one another’s lives. I think that’s why it feels like such an honor to me when people choose to hand me a piece of their lives. It feels like a truly precious gift, because it is a risk to trust these things with another. My own experience with spiritual direction has put me on a journey of healing & learning how to bring these things to the surface with more trust & security.
If we’re able to create space to slow down & listen to the people around us & put aside the rush of all the other things on our to-do list, how might we contribute to healing? To rebuilding a culture that doesn’t overlook one another? I wonder how I might have benefitted from a space like this earlier in my adulthood, or when I was a college student. Perhaps my healing journey would have begun a lot sooner, or there might have been less to heal from to begin with. My choice to pursue spiritual direction as part of my ministry comes from a desire to create these kinds of spaces, especially for this generation of young people who are surrounded by hurry. We’re in need of companionship in our deepest places, someone to slow themselves from the rest of the world, invite us to slow down enough to actually share, & to point us toward the movement & healing love of God in our lives. If the actual God of the universe chose to move at human walking-speed for the sake of love, it feels like a worthy invitation for us as well.
Looking to connect with a spiritual director? We have many of our graduates (like Taylor!) listed on our website.