Why Slow and Small Produces Better Results

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There, we’ve said it already—that slow and small produces better results—but sometimes there is a lag between the knowing and the living. The world tells us to hustle but our hearts don’t concur—we sometimes just don’t stop to listen. But this ripple effect way of living, it’s not a frenzied rush, it’s not a vying to climb rungs and be on top, it’s not painting a curated picture of perfection—it’s found in the slow of real-life living.

It’s Him and me, and you and I, and all of us learning together to walk out a faith that is real deep down to our very bones.

It’s dropping the faking and the masking and the comparing and the rushing. It’s not going faster, but deeper.

Choosing small with my all

Kaitlyn Bouchillon talks about being small in Even If Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the in Between, and I paused to underline lines. She writes,

Our souls weren’t made for a stage, but neither were we made to play small. Instead, God’s love and glory is displayed in brilliance and greatness in and through our smallness. Small is not the same as shrinking back and this “even if not” looks a bit different than the rest. Even if I am never handed a microphone or an actual book deal, even if I’m remembered only by a handful, living in the in between of big and small still finds me seen and known. I don’t need to play small, I simply get small.

We “simply get small.” We choose small when we invite God and the people near us into the real-life moments that comprise our actual lives. We choose small when we point to our praise to the glory-God, keep none of the credit for ourselves. We choose small when we walk boldly into vulnerability, share the stories that God is currently writing of our lives. We choose small when we accept that God can use even our baby steps and that the direction we are heading matters more than our pace.

Emily P. Freeman’s gentle words I always welcome. She, too, talks of small in Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World. Let’s read her words together:

These days I am careful to not color the word small in negative shades, as if it were something to run from or escape. I want to start small because I’m human and dependent, not in hopes that my small will grow into something bigger. Jesus will give me the grace to stay there even when it hurts and even when it’s hard. I want to stay small in his presence, not because I’m scared, but because I’m his.

We welcome our smallness when we choose to sit in the weighty glory of God’s presence, choose His nearness, choose to stay nestled in the next-to-Him place. “Staying small” is seeing who we are and who He is and how that fills everything in between. It’s living a life that ripples because we know deep down in our bones that we are beloved to God, and knowing we are loved affects everything else about our lives. It’s letting God in and people in and letting God be God inside us and through us and all around us.

Slow is the way to go

As Caesar Kalinowski unpacks in his book Small is Big, Slow is Fast, “Small is big, slow is fast, and multiplication wins. Every time.” He continues, “It’s the little things done consistently over time that develop into habits and patterns. Nothing in our lives that has great value, substance, and nuance is integrated quickly into our lives.”

In order to make a big impact, we have to choose small and slow.

We show up for the small moments because these are often the ones that grow us most to look like Him.

We slow our pace and quiet the noise until it’s Him and us and nothing else matters.

We get low so He can build what will remain on the inside of us.

We open our hands and declare in the waiting His promise to fill, to redeem, to make whole.

We surrender our desire to hustle, to hurry, to make plans, and to set the pace. And we walk instead with Him. We slip our hand into His, match our steps with His. And here, in the near-Him space, we learn what moves His heart and how His eyes see and how He cares for least of these.

It may feel back-wards to slow down, to start small, but it’s the way to live big, to ripple a God-sized impact. Because a big God fills the small and makes it no longer small. He fills the slow and makes it grow.

As I write, my family and I are two weeks into what’s turning into four weeks without counters or a kitchen sink. And though we are more than over using plastic spoons to dish up Costco meals we can warm in the microwave, I’m learning something in this season of slow and fast colliding.

We can rush if we so decide. We can make our meals fast.

But we can eat them slow.

It’s up to us. And we all get to decide how to set our pace.

Where we can choose slow, we give our souls a chance to savor, to seep in the significant.

Slow can look like making homemade sour dough bread, waiting for the slow souring and the slow rising that makes bread delicious. But slow can also look like creating as few dishes as possible right now, sharing even microwave-warmed meals, and choosing margin because ripples have more room to expand when we stop rushing. Sometimes slow looks different in different seasons because slow is the pace within even more than it is the pace obvious to others.

Both small and slow help us grow

We live in a results-driven culture—one that often tells us to speed up or get run over, grow fast or get swallowed. But missional living runs counter-current to the hustle because it’s not about promoting ourselves but pursuing Him, not about making a big splash, but the slow and steady ripples of Him in us seeping into everything about the way we live.

Missional living is truly that—a way of living—not an add-on that weighs us down. Not activities to fill our schedules, but white space for real relationships. Not earning and striving and check-marking, but the natural rhythm of abiding and then doing as an overflow of being His.

“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden?” Jesus asks in Matthew 11:28-30 TPT. Then He shows us a better way to live:

Come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me.For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.

Today, if your steps are fast but your soul craves slow, I encourage you to start small. Identify just one area of your life you can trade the rush for the real. And then surrender it to the One big enough to hold all things small and big alike.

When we get small and quiet, we see how big God is and hear the tenderness in His whispers. Small is the vantage point, and slow sets a sustainable pace. And here is where we grow because it’s Him growing louder and nearer and dearer, and we can’t help but to begin looking more like Him when He lives inside us.

Let’s end with a prayer of blessing.

May we choose the unhurried pace and the humble beginnings. May we learn Your rhythms, match Your pace. May we be small and let You be big—today and always. In Your precious and holy name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.

P.S. Did you know The Uncommon Normal is also a podcast? Tune in on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, or Spotify.

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