Slowing Down in a Fast World

Slowing down in a fast world seems counterintuitive. How will we keep up? What will we miss? Won’t we fall behind?

Yet when God tells you to sit down, you sit.

Strange, what being forced to slow down could do to a person.

Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

Life has a way of pressing us, pushing us, and pulling us in every direction. External pressures dictate our lives if we let them—and sometimes even when we don’t. We live in a culture that prizes busyness as a badge of honor. Productivity becomes identity. Hustle gets mistaken for holiness.

Self-Portrait #9
©2025 Rainer Bantau
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But God works differently. Stillness is not passivity; it’s an act of trust. When we slow down, we make space for God to speak, to heal, and to move in ways that our hurried lives can’t always see.

Psalm 37:7 NIV

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

For me, slowing down has not been optional. I am recovering from PTSD, and my body and soul have forced me to learn rhythms of rest. At first, it felt like weakness, even failure. But over time, I’ve come to see it as grace. This did not occur overnight. It’s taken time. Slowing down has not only helped me survive, it’s teaching me how to live.

Maybe you’re in a season where God is asking you to sit down, too. Not as punishment, but as protection. Not as a limitation, but as liberation.

In a world that never stops moving, perhaps the most radical act of faith is to stop, breathe, and trust that God is enough. You are enough.