Haste
“God is nearing, in beauty and grace!. . . in haste, come out in haste!” All Earth is Hopeful vs 3
When I was a baby, my mother worried that I was slow to start crawling. When she asked my doctor, he reassured her and said ‘he’ll go when he’s ready.’ Sure enough, when another boy showed up across the living room with cars to play with, I took off crawling like a four legged sprinter. I finally had a good reason to move with haste, or to move at all, it seems.
Our hymn urges haste as the appropriate response to our God who is nearing. So often the message we hear is ‘hurry up!” The car behind us riding our bumper, the teen feeling pressure to have their life mapped out by the end of high school, the line worker struggling to keep up with a productivity target. The message of the hymn is not that. Advent is not a demand. It is an announcement. Someone is dawning whose love so fills our soul that our feet quicken naturally, as we run to greet him with joy.
Can you see the difference? What is making your hurry today and how can you focus on the One who is worthy of our haste?
Lord Jesus, grant me the gift of discernment that I might hurry less for that which fades and hasten for you who are eternal in love. Amen.