What’s the best book you’ve read this past year and why? The best book I’ve read this past year is The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg.

Ortberg’s writing is humorous and very practical. I found myself being convicted and challenged in almost every chapter. One chapter in particular, Ortberg talks about the Disease of Hurry sickness. Hurry sickness is “above all, a continuous struggle to accomplish more and more things in less and less time.”

How do you know if you have “Hurry Sickness?” Ortberg, suggests a simple diagnostic exercise. Answer yes or no to the following questions.

1. Do you constantly Speed up Daily Activities? - For example, at the grocery store, if we have a choice between two checkout lines, we find ourselves counting how many people are in each line...after we get in line, we keep track of the person who would have been me in the other line. If we get through and the person who would have been me is still waiting, we’re elated. We’ve won. But if the other person is walking out of the store and we’re still in line, we feel depressed. We have hurry sickness.

2. Do you constantly “Multi-Task”? - this is the art of doing more than one thing at a time in order to save time. The car is a favorite place for multi-tasking. Hurry-sick people may drive, eat, drink coffee, monitor the radio, shave or apply makeup, talk on the phone and make gestures all at the same time.

3. Is your life Cluttered? - Hurry-sick people often have huge daytimers and buy time-saving devices that they don’t use because they don’t have the time to read the directions. Clutter also occurs when life is full of too many obligations. We then begin to forget important dates and appointments and are unable to follow-through on all the stuff that we couldn’t say “no” to.

4. Is your life Superficial? - hurry-sick people lack depth because they are involved in so much. Ortberg says, “today we have largely traded wisdom for information. We have exchanged depth for breadth. We want to microwave maturity.”

So what’s wrong with hurry sickness? After all, isn’t it good to be efficient with the use of our time? Isn’t it virtuous to be a good steward of our time?

It’s certainly good to use our time wisely but hurry sickness is very dangerous to our faith. As Ortberg says, “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.”

The cure for hurry sickness is slowing down. A key discipline to help is the practice of solitude.

Jesus made it a priority to get away from the crowds and even his disciples for extended periods of solitude. It was during these times that he connected with the Father. These times of reflection are vital if we are to notice and gain freedom from the forces of society that will otherwise relentlessly mold us.

For Jennifer and I, this past year has been a tremendous year of adjustment. Being the parents of twins and being the directors of a growing ministry, there is no end to the tasks that continually scream for our attention.

This summer we hope to take a break from our hurry-sick schedule. We are scheduled to take a one-month sabbatical, something that we’ve not done in all our years in ministry. But first, we must spend some time raising personal support.