What the Perseid Meteor Showers Taught Me About Slowing Down
If we're not careful, we'll distract ourselves away from what God is trying to do in our lives.
One of my favorite events of the summer is the Perseid Meteor Shower that comes every year in mid-August.
My fascination in this meteor shower started for me in my late teens and early 20s. Before the school year started, I’d to stay out until 2 or 3 a.m. by the pool at my parents’ old house, reclined in a beach chair staring up at the night sky watching for meteors. We were in a rather big neighborhood in the city, so the surrounding lights made visibility into the sky difficult, but the view was still good enough to catch a few meteors over those few hours.
Outer space is both terrifying and awe-inspiring, and unless I really stop and take time stare at it, I often take for granted that we are just on a floating surface in the middle of an incredibly vast solar system that our minds cannot fully comprehend. There’s so much more than what our eyes can see on earth. It truly displays the magnificent creativity of God.
I’ve always lived in a city and tried to watch the shower from home, but a few years ago for the first time I drove out to a more remote area of the county to get away from the lights in hopes of a better view of the sky. I drove around until I found what looked like a good place to pull over and watch. I parked, set up my lawn chair, and waited. A subtle breeze grazed my skin as locusts chirped away. The only lights I saw were headlights of the few cars that passed me.
I took a moment to pray and thank God for such a beautiful and still night. As I neared the end of my prayer, I saw a meteor shoot across the sky out of the corner of my eye.
If you’ve never watched a meteor shower, I highly recommend it, especially if you can get to a secluded spot in the country on a clear night. It’s like watching nature’s own fireworks show.
That night, I couldn’t help but notice my posture throughout all of this and how it resembles what our walk with Jesus should look like. I was only going to see meteors if my eyes were fixed on the sky. I wouldn’t see any if my head was buried in my phone or distracted doing anything else. I had to get away from all the lights of the city — away from the chaos — and head to the calm, still countryside if I wanted to see any meteors.
It’s nice to have that reminder of how we should live our lives. Sometimes we won’t hear what God is saying to us or see what God is trying to show us unless we are calm and still and fix our focus on Him. In his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer quotes Ronald Rolheiser, who lamented that “we are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.”
We are missing the work God is doing because we are doling out so much of our attention elsewhere.
A few years back, I completely forgot that the Perseids were about to peak. It wasn’t until I checked my Facebook Memories that I saw some of my old posts from my early 20s and I was reminded to look for them. I’d been so busy with my career as a teacher and a tennis coach that it completely slipped my mind. Even this year, as the shower peaked this past weekend, my attempts to remember it and make an appointment to drive out to the country to watch proved to be futile. I got busy and distracted and mistook the date it would peak.
Once again, I missed it because I was too busy.
On several occasions now, something I typically have looked forward to every summer has completely fallen off my radar. If we’re not careful, our relationship with Jesus can face the same outcome.
The Bible warns us against falling in love with our busy lives and tells us to be quiet and listen for God.
We’re told in Psalm 46:10 to, “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
The book of Samuel takes it a step further in 1 Samuel 12:16:
“Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes.”
We are made for so much more than just serving as pawns in a culture that tells us to work more and hustle even more on the side, that resting equates to laziness.
According to a recent survey from Pew Research Center, 46% of employees who are offered paid time off don’t use their entire allotment. Additionally, 52% of salaried employees take less time off than they’re afforded. Those in management roles took even less than time off than their employees, the study found.
Why are we doing this to ourselves?
This culture of overworking, combined with other factors, breeds stress at every age level, but it’s particularly high among college students, young adults and young professionals, research shows. According to the American Psychological Association's 2022 "Stress in America" report, 46% of adults ages 18 to 35 reported that "most days they are so stressed they can't function."
In a culture that praises productivity and shames rest, we must fight for rest like our life depends on it, because it does. Too much stress can literally kill you. Don’t fall for the lie that doing more means getting more, and getting more means more self-worth.
Satan will absolutely use tactics like busyness and distraction to slowly wear you down to where you feel burnt out. And when you feel burnt out, you have very little left to give to you friends, family and other meaningful relationships. Your relationship with God suffers, too, because your tank is just empty.
We have to slow down. We have to put down the phone, the obsession with work and productivity, and the constant need to be doing something or be connected with someone. Embrace the stillness. The quiet. The boredom, even! Remember being bored? It’s OK to be a little bored sometimes.
Allow your mind to rest, your imagination and creativity to take shape, and just be with God. That’s ultimately what will fill us up.
In No Hurry Podcast
Want more content on Christian living and living an unhurried life? Check out my podcast, “In No Hurry,” where I talk with authors, pastors and Christian creatives about their work, creative process and how they slow down in life. Today, I released Episode 100, and I’d love to have you on board for the next 100.
You can listen wherever you get podcasts.