Alan Fadling - An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus Rhythms of Work and Rest

Im still a recovering speed addict. Finding freedom from my bad habits of soul hurry continues to be a critical pursuit in my life and work. Like my friends in recovery from addictions to alcohol, drugs or other dynamics in their lives, Ive found that my recovery continues to be a one-day-at-a-time journey. Ive come to expect that this will be true for the rest of my life.

Pursuing an unhurried life in the spirit of Jesus has proven far more fruitful than I imagined when I first wrote this book. Im finding these insights to be a catalyst for soul health and productive work for people I interact with around the world.

Ive had the opportunity to talk about these insights with people in many different organizational, cultural and international contexts. Im grateful to find that the idea of living unhurried with Jesus is not only helpful in a Western context, but it appears to be a universal human experience.

The insights of , Rest: The Rhythm of Creation, continue to be key for me. For example, I still wrestle with a tendency to numb rather than rest. Of course, the challenge is that when we numb, we no longer feel tired. But when the numbness wears off, we are just more tired. This tempts us to even more numbing. It can become a debilitating cycle.

When we numb our tiredness, its never a local anesthesia. Numbing affects every facet of our lives, and this often causes us to be asleep and susceptible to misguided impulses and inclinations. My habit of numbing can also look like escaping, self-distracting, avoiding or hiding. Im learning what real rest looks like, how it awakens me to the presence of God with me, and how I find creativity, energy, vision and courage to engage my life and my work more fruitfully.

My conviction has deepened that rest really does come first and that it is the fertile soil in which the best kind of kingdom work grows. No matter where I go around the world, Im seeing this work produce good and lasting fruit. Rest first is proving to be the seminal idea in this book that is gaining the most traction.

When An Unhurried Life was published seven years ago, there were two main sources for the ideas it contained. First and foremost there was biblical work I had done in the Gospels, reflecting on the life of Jesus and whether, as Dallas Willard had suggested, he was relaxed. Working with a vision of Jesus as relaxedas unhurriedbecame a critical place of learning, insight and, eventually, teaching for me in my leadership development work.

The second source of ideas and content were a few core presentations I had been giving for years. I had been speaking on themes such as how rest and work relate, how God prunes the fruitful branch so that it will become even more fruitful, and how we cooperate with God in the journey toward wholeness, holiness and maturity.

A few years ago, my wife, Gem, and I began to receive more and more invitations to speak and train on the core ideas of An Unhurried Life. As a result, we launched a new nonprofit called Unhurried Living as a home for this growing work. It has felt like a place where the convergence of our life with God and our work with God can grow and develop.

If I were to guess, the challenge of living unhurried inside when our culture is so hurried on the outside has only increased. I believe the insights of this book are more needed today than they were seven years ago.

In addition to this new preface, this revised and expanded edition has a new appendix with some five-minute practices that have been helping me unhurry during my busy days. Also new is a group guide to complement the original reflection questions at the end of each chapter. These additions will guide you in putting into practice the insights of An Unhurried Life.