It all begins with God — what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our “narrative” of God? What are the narratives that hinder our perception and life in God?

James Bryan Smith, in The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows (The Apprentice Series)  , in chp. 9, closes off this set of studies about God by ….

Thinking about being “present” every moment.

What is the biggest obstacle for you when it comes to being “present” at every moment?

James Bryan Smith deals with being in a hurry and being too busy. The false narrative is the narrative of Martha (instead of Mary). “Will we take on too many things?” is the question.

Speed is not the problem; the problem is our love of speed. The irony, of course, is that while we do everything we can do to save time, we don’t enjoy time. We speed up in order to do more but in speeding up we accomplish less of what is important.

The first public clock was erected in 1370 in Cologne, Germany. Life was changed — we measure things by the clock and how much we can do in a hour and how fast we can go in an hour…

The most important things in life — love of God, love of others — cannot be rushed. Rushing them ruins them.

Mary’s way is better than Martha’s. He likes Jesus’ rhythm in Mark 1:35-39.

Slow down. That’s the ticket to finding the good and beautiful God.