Fools Rush In

First published in The Daily Sentinel, Friday, Oct. 3, 2008



My wife and I went to a major department store last week to look at new bath towels. This is an errand that I complete only every decade or so. When I buy bath towels, I like to buy the really good ones so that they will last a really long time.

As we came off the escalator, we were surrounded by CHRISTMAS! Christmas trees, Christmas angels, Santa Clauses, snowmen – if it was Christmas-related, it was on display (except for Nativity scenes, but that’s another column).

I looked at my wife and asked if we had somehow lost six weeks in a time-warp as we came up the escalator. (I watch a lot of Star Trek, and much stranger things have happened to Kirk, Picard, and Janeway.) My wife reassured me that I was still anchored in reality – well, that may be somewhat debatable – and that the store had simply rushed us into the Christmas buying frenzy.

We also went to a major home improvement warehouse store – and they had Christmas stuff out, too! It seems that retailers can’t get us into thinking about buying for Christmas soon enough. And so they rush into the season, even before the last days of September are behind us.

Frank Sinatra sang a song about fools rushing into things. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. And so I come to you my love, my heart above my head.” Frank’s rushing had to do with romantic love – but we rush today into EVERYTHING.

Picking on retailers for rushing Christmas is easy. They are so visible in their rushing – too blatant for subtlety. But what about the rush to this presidential election season? How long has the 2008 campaign gone on? It seems we’ve heard from and about McCain and Obama (and Clinton and Romney, and all the other wanna-be’s) since the day after the last presidential election. And how about the financial bail-out bill? That $700-billion package was rushed to Congress so fast that most of us were still trying to figure out what it was, much less why it was needed.

Rushing also happens on a more personal level. We rush to school, rush to work, rush to judgment. Whoops! Maybe I rushed to that last category. Let me repeat it again: we rush to judgment.

Sometimes it’s over relatively harmless things. My wife tried a new recipe for dinner. My kids looked at it and curled up their noses even before tasting it. Their rush to judgment worked out well for me. I though the meal tasted delicious – and there was more for me!

But rushing to judgment can also be severely damaging. We see someone who looks different, and immediately decide that person is unlikable. We see a house that looks more inviting to raccoons than people and decide whoever lives there must be bad. Or we see someone’s palatial home and decide that person must be good.

Rushing is truly a foolish thing. We rush when we do not take the time to do things right, thoroughly, or completely. Rushing leads to mistakes. Rush the curing of concrete and it will crack. Rush the completion of homework and careless mistakes lower the grade.

The opposite of rushing is not procrastination or laziness. The true opposite of rushing is pacing. Making decisions with careful consideration; following processes in a timely fashion. Here’s how the Apostle Paul put it:

“Here's what I want you to do. While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.” (Ephesians 4:1-3 “The Message Bible”)

Only fools rush in. As Christians, we are called to wisdom – and we have the One most Wise to guide us. So even if you see jingle bells in July, remember that Jesus is more than a season of shopping, and the political and financial crises of the moment will not defeat Him – or us!