Haste Makes Waste
Scripture Reading: Proverbs 19:2
Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way. (ESV)
There is something to the old saying “haste makes waste.” I suspect it was a modified version of this proverb. We can be in a rush, and we often are. Sometimes that is out of necessity. We can’t help it. There is a deadline, an appointment, or some other imposed time constraint that demands we hurry up. I have often found myself in a constant state of hurriedness, always rushing from this to that, and never letting my foot off the accelerator. Haste can become a mindset and a way of living, and that is a mistake.
The problem with always hurrying is we never have time to pause and reflect on where we are going. We don’t ask important questions about life, meaning, purpose, or what our end game is. The result is we wake up one day and find we got somewhere in a hurry, but it isn’t where we wanted to be.
Thankfully, God gives grace to repentant rushers. He allows us to reset. Sometimes He even gives us a shortcut to where we should have been going all along. At other times He makes us walk the long journey back, retracing our steps until we get to the fork in the road where we got off track. His wisdom dictates what is best for us. There is no “one size fits all” plan of God for our lives.
As we approach the New Year, one thing we can do to positively affect our daily lives is to learn to slow down, seek the Lord in prayer, ask for His guidance, and learn to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
