The Speed Limit

I learned to drive mostly from my dad. To say that my dad is laid back is an understatement, but when it comes to being behind the wheel he's all about control. I can probably count on one hand the times I have been in the car with my mom driving and my dad as the passenger. He was an excellent teacher, but I could tell it made him nervous not to be in the driver's seat. Another thing you should know about my dad is that he ALWAYS goes the speed limit. Most people I know go at least 5 over to "keep up with the flow of traffic." Not my dad. When I was learning, he always used to say:

Just because it says 65 doesn't mean you have to go that fast.

I got to thinking about that this week as I was making my to do list. The world tells us that our speed limit is 65, but do we really have to go that fast to keep up? And who are we keeping up with - ourselves, our neighbors, other moms? I started to weed out those things that I didn't really "need" to do this week and some white space started to appear on my calendar. Hmm... that looked pretty good. Then the week started and life got hectic again. I started thinking about the world's speed limit and how I was just keeping up witht he flow of traffic. Then my Gram's words popped into my head:

Jesus never hurried, and He got everything done that God needed Him to do.

Well, that was it. I just needed to slow down and take it one thing at a time. I needed to prioritize and set goals for myself instead of speeding up, saying yes to everything, and cramming at the last minute. Things started to fall into place, and God started opening doors for me to do some special ministry work. Hey, I even had time to enjoy a date with my husband and some alone time too.

How do you keep yourself from putting the pedal to the metal?