Lessons From the Desert: Don’t Rush Through Life

This month at Pasture Living, I'm sharing what I learned during my Israel trip and why I think this series is very relevant to healthy living. I believe being physically healthy is important, but being mentally, psychologically, and spiritually healthy is also extremely important for a fulfilling and joyful life. If you missed any of this series, click here.

Advent Day 22

View of Jerusalem

We visited the Temple Mount (Second Temple) in Jerusalem. We walked around the temple and witnessed just how grand it must have been during Jesus' time. We weren't able to go inside but we were able to see what it looked like in the reconstruction model shown in the Israel museum. The thing that caught my eye were the steps to the temple. They were big, deep steps, and their width vary with every step. It was purposefully made that way so that people could take the time to see the beauty of what's in front of them instead of rushing and dashing up to the top. With each step, you need to stop for a second and automatically looks up because it was not easy to rush through your way up. There is something we can learn from this too. Our modern lifestyle is all about being efficient, quick, and easy. We often rush through life because we think we are going to miss everything if we don't hurry up - just because there are way too many things that we need to check off our list and there is never enough time. We tell our children to hurry up as they are admiring the flowers and noticing interesting bugs on the street because we are going to be late. We tell our children that we don't have time for this and that because we need to do something else. We are essentially saying "I don't have time for you to enjoy your life because I am too busy and what you are doing is not important." I'm guilty of this and I am learning to take time and enjoy the sweet simplicity of life, giving my daughter her time and space instead of hurrying her through life. Just like when we eat a plate of something delicious, we don't just gulp down everything quickly, instead, we take the time to savor the taste a bite at a time and we learn to appreciate the difference between good quality food versus the not-so-good ones.

Things become more beautiful and love comes easier when we don't rush.

Second temple model at Israel museum