One of our great leaders of the Baptist faith F W Boreham, was once thrown a farewell party. He received many personal comments and thank-you's. One however was unusual. A young lady stood up and remarked that in all her time with him, she had never seen him run anywhere. He never seemed to be in a hurry. He always had plenty of time to get from place to place. I don't think he mentioned the truth of the matter - the fact that he had one wooden leg!! But she was on to something. When we think of the New Testament, there is only one occasion when we see Jesus running anywhere, and that was when he escaped the stoning by the people. Even then, I imagine He probably used clever tactics to sneak away rather than running as fast as He could. One event sticks out in particular with Jesus though, and that was when Jesus had been informed about the imminent death of Lazarus. If Lazarus had of been my friend, I would not have been waiting around for a few days. I can understand the anger of the women towards Jesus when He finally got there, because with a few simple words Jesus could have healed Lazarus. But He didn't rush over to where they were, He continued doing exactly what He was doing, until He knew it was time to go see them. He most definitely was not in a hurry. Why? Because He was operating in line with the agenda of His Father and not the agenda of people who demanded things of Him. Sometimes we need to be more aware of why we are rushing about doing things. Is it to please people? Is it to show what we are worth or to give us a personal sense of achievement? Are we more concerned with how we will look to other people, and therefore concentrating on running to their agenda, rather than to the agenda of our heavenly Father? Take time to smell the roses - take time to hear where God would have us go and what He would have us do - Slow down a bit, the world looks so different from where my Grandfather stands! Danny
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