The alarm clock announces a new day. My eyes have not even opened as a litany of tasks parade through my mind. Writing deadlines, laundry piles, appointments to schedule—the list floods my senses until tension rises in my chest. The sun has barely crested on the horizon, and already I cannot shake the feeling I am behind.

After grabbing coffee, I open my email to find another rejection letter from a publisher. This is part of it, I tell myself (and while it’s true, I have not yet found a way to hate it less). The lagging feeling persists.

In the next room, two of my sons begin to squabble, and deaf to my instructions to “be kind!” their rift intensifies. Forced to intervene, I banish them to opposite ends of the breakfast table. While I tell myself rationally that all siblings have disagreements, I wear their moments of unkindness like sandbags across my shoulders. With a deep sigh, I wonder, What am I doing wrong?

Everywhere I look is not-enoughness—my deficits on full display. An urgency wells up within me, and I become hungry to fix the flaws. More pitches to publishers. More alone time with the kids. More books to read, podcasts to listen to, changes to make in our routine and rhythms. Why is my panicked answer was always more?

***

Almost daily, I am met with this internal nagging, a sense of urgency trying to convince me I am behind as a writer, as a women, as a mother, and as a friend. Its nasty little lies poke holes in my contentment and push me to claw for “my piece of the pie.” Too many times, I have succumbed. I have grabbed my slice and hid protectively in a corner to devour it. But the pie tasted bitter—tainted by the greed and isolation that comes from elbowing others out of the way. There was no sweetness at the end of the striving, no sense of belonging.

More only led to empty ends. Dissatisfied, I began to pull back the layers of my frenzied pace, and what I found was that while my hurry looked like working hard—a tenacity in my bones—all that scrappiness was not a pursuit of righteousness but an attempt to mitigate my flaws, to convince myself and the world of my worth. At the mercy of misplaced hustle, urgency is only scarcity in disguise.

Entire marketing techniques are built on creating a sense of urgency through a belief in scarcity in order to achieve a desired response. Researchers know that being without (you fill in the blank) produces fear, driving us to make hurried decisions. [1] Toilet-paper shortages cause people to clear Charmin off the shelves at the local Target, even if they have an ample supply at home. When Amazon tells us that only five copies of a best-selling novel are left in stock, we add it quickly to our cart. Urgency sells.

But to what end?

Lack pushes us to be better, faster, more popular. We pick up the pace, believing that if we can prove our enough-ness we too can sit at the big kids’ table, where spots are limited and confidence comes naturally. We side-eye each other in competition, viewing a person’s presence as a threat rather than an invitation, and grasp until our knuckles turn white. Our hands become clenched so tight around what we want that we cannot receive what we already have.

Abundance is already here. God offers the cup of communion, dripping with the fullness of his mercy and presence, and yet we settle for anxiously gathered crumbs. We do not sip and savor because we are too busy scrambling after every scrap that falls. All the while, hunger churns in our bellies.

The irony of it all is that while urgency whispers of what is ahead, contentment is cultivated in the now. Where urgency threatens and tells us to protect what is ours, contentment comes with an open hand and a generous heart. Where urgency divides, contentment is found in connection and collaboration.

Because the undercurrent of urgency is scarcity, the battle is won not in pushing forward, but in letting go.

As we resist the “tyranny of the urgent,” the very crumbs we once devoured and dismissed become the Bread of Presence.[1] We no longer hoard and hide in the corner, but rather pass the cup from hand to hand. We become filled by the fruit of the Spirit that sits upon a table wide enough for everyone.

Yes, we still work.

Yes, we still dream.

Yes, we continue to change and to grow.

But we embrace a slower way, knowing that we drink from a well that will not run dry. Not today. Not ever. We do not have to clamor for what is ours, because everything we need is already here, nestled in the infinite love of an eternal God.

***

Resisting the urgent does not come easily. For those of us in American culture, we live in a society that’s constantly moving and consuming, where tweets disappear faster than you can read them and everyone seems to be doing something (so very) important. To let go of the urgent may initially feel like you’re falling behind.

But what I’m finding as I let go of strain and the striving forward—of the comparison that so easily eats at my soul—that God is waiting in the stillness. While panic wants me to believe I will not be enough to realize my dreams of getting published, to raise decent humans, or to cultivate lasting friendships, God is revealing that part of pursuit is surrender. And for me, that means embracing the pace and the path that is mine to follow.

Granted, I do not stay here naturally. Without constant conversation with God or mindfulness of my motivations, lack is always lurking and urging me off course. So I have had to let go of a few things in order to embrace what is more, and in this season, that looks like:

Getting off social media most weekends so that I do not become a slave to the algorithms or forsake my face-to-face life.
Saying no to good things (outings, groups, opportunities) if they’re not mine to do or if they keep me from being present or doing deep work.
Saying yes to tucking my kids into bed, to little hands that want to help make dinner, and to moments of silence that usher me into a deeper awareness of God.
Pressing pause on a really big project that I’m excited about but that needs to wait.
Stepping back from work this summer, taking off July from all things writing and podcasting (this one is new and slightly terrifying, and we will see how it goes!).

If you’re thinking about unclenching from the urgent, please know: Even now, my hands are a tad sweaty as I type. All this letting go is not easy because surrender has no guarantees on return. The end may not look the way we imagine.

But the more we untangle ourselves from what feels urgent, the more we find peace right where we are.

NOTES

[1] Simply type the words “urgency scarcity” into a search engine and peruse the articles and books that teach how to use a sense of urgency in order to increase sales.

[2] This phrase originated in a publication written by Charles E. Hummel, Tyranny of the Urgent, which was last published by IVP Books in 1994.

feature image by Ben White via unsplash

The Problem with Urgency and the Power of Letting Go