Sessions Include:

Lesson #1: Transformed

Lesson #2: Training

Lesson #3: Celebration

Lesson #4: Unhurry

Lesson #5: Prayer

Lesson #6: Servanthood

Lesson #7: Confession

Lesson #8: The Guided Life

Lesson #9: A Life of Freedom

Lesson #10: An Undivided Life

Lesson #11: A Well-Ordered Heart

Lesson #12: A Life of Endurance

Not long after moving to Chicago, I called a wise friend to ask for some spiritual direction. I described the pace at which things tend to move in my current setting. I told him about the rhythms of our family life and about the present condition of my heart, as best I could discern it. What did I need to do, I asked him, to be spiritually healthy?

Long pause.

“You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,” he said at last. Another long pause.

“Okay, I’ve written that one down,” I told him, a little impatiently. “That’s a good one. Now what else is there?” I had many things to do, and this was a long-distance conversation, so I was anxious to cram as many units of spiritual wisdom into the least amount of time possible.

Another long pause.

“There is nothing else,” he said.

He is the wisest spiritual mentor I have known. And while he doesn’t know every detail about every grain of sin in my life, he knows quite a bit. And from an immense quiver of spiritual sagacity, he drew only one arrow. “There is nothing else,” he said. “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

Imagine for a moment that someone gave you this prescription, with the warning that your life depends on it. Consider the possibility that perhaps your life does depend on it. Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. Hurry can destroy our souls.

Hurry can keep us from living well. As Carl Jung wrote, “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.”

Again and again, as we pursue spiritual life, we must do battle with hurry. For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.

Ortberg, John. 2009. The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Check out the new Bible Study, The Life You've Always Wanted. It is available on Amazon, as well as part of the Good Questions Have Groups Talking subscription service. (Like Netflix for Bible lessons.)