CHAPTER 6

The Pace of the Trail

"You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."

— Dallas Willard

Now that you’ve dropped the dead weight of your old pack at the narrow gate, you have to face a frustrating reality: The narrow path cannot be navigated at a sprint.

Our culture has conditioned us to believe that faster is always better and that our worth is tied directly to our output. We measure progress by speed, efficiency, and visible results. When we bring that broken, hustle-driven mindset to the trail of faith, we attempt to turn discipleship into a corporate ladder. We map out our schedules, set our goals, track our metrics, and rush ahead without consulting the Lord first. We run down the road, look back, and wait for Him to catch up to our plans. We treat our agendas as sacred text and view interruptions as enemies.

We assume that because our hands are finally empty, we should run as fast as we can to make up for lost time.

But the Kingdom moves at a completely different speed. It is a slow, deliberate pace anchored entirely in the current step.

The Lessons of "Flexico"

I was given a vivid reminder of how destructive this frantic pace can be during a mission trip to Mexico, where our team served with El Monte, a camp ministry and missionary training center in Ticumán, Morelos.

During our time there, the ministry director, Paul Wilson, introduced us to a term that instantly captured my attention: "Flexico."

It was a playful shorthand for a profound cultural reality. Mexico moves at a very different pace than the Western world. It operates with a beautiful fluidity, requiring you to stay flexible enough to change direction at a moment's notice.

Over the course of our week there, I watched this play out in real time. We moved forward with our work, accomplished our tasks, and served the ministry—but it wasn't done in a panicked rush. There was room to breathe. More importantly, there was room for people.

When we lack that "Flexico" flexibility in our spiritual lives, we reveal a subtle lack of trust. Solomon reminds us of the proper balance between our responsibility and God's ultimate authority:

"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." — Proverbs 16:9

We are allowed to plan, but we must hold those plans loosely enough for God to establish our actual steps. When we force our own timeline, we usually end up exhausted, disconnected, and running in the wrong direction.

The Unhurried Savior

Look at the life of Jesus. He was tasked with the most urgent mission in human history—the salvation of the world—yet you never see Him rushing. He operated in complete synchronization with the Father’s timeline, deliberately refusing to let human panic, public demand, or external pressure dictate His stride.

We see this unhurried cadence woven throughout the Gospels:

• He Refused the Crisis Pace: When word reached Him that His dear friend Lazarus was desperately ill, human logic demanded an immediate, panicked sprint to Bethany. Yet Scripture records a striking detail: "So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days" (John 11:6). Jesus refused to let urgency override divine timing.

• He Prioritized Solitude Over Demand: In Mark 1, after a night of massive local ministry, the disciples tracked Jesus down in a solitary place where He had gone early in the morning to pray. They urged Him to hurry back, exclaiming, "Everyone is looking for you!" (Mark 1:37). Instead of bowing to the pressure of the crowd's expectations, Jesus remained anchored in prayer and calmly directed their next steps elsewhere.

• He Habitually Withdrew to Pray: Luke notes that Jesus "often withdrew to lonely places and prayed" (Luke 5:16). Whether slipping away to the quiet olive groves of Gethsemane or retreating up a mountain after a long day of teaching, Jesus regularly paused to align His heart with the Father before taking another step forward.

Jesus was never stressed by time, never panicked by crowds, and never rushed by the demands of others. He walked everywhere He went. He stopped for the one—interrupting His schedule for the outcast, the sick, or a single desperate person in a dense crowd. His life was marked by radical presence, not hurry.

The Mechanics of Galatians 5:25

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul instructs us on how to navigate the narrow path alongside the Lord:

"Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." — Galatians 5:25

Notice the phrasing: Keep in step. Not run ahead. Not lag behind. To keep in step with someone, you cannot be lagging behind, but you also cannot be running miles ahead. You have to match their stride, match their speed, and be ready to turn the moment they turn.

In the original language, the word Paul uses for "keep in step" (stoicheō) carries the picture of walking in a single file line—marching in precise synchronization, placing your foot in the exact footprint left by the one leading you.

It requires you to surrender your own cadence. Walking with the Spirit isn't about pioneering your own path or setting your own pace; it is about absolute synchronization with the Master. When you break pace, you inevitably fall into one of two distinct pitfalls:

1. Running Ahead (Presumption)

If you sprint ahead of Him out of impatience, pride, or zeal without knowledge, you are hiking blind. You end up exposed and vulnerable, walking right into traps because you assumed you knew the layout of the trail better than the One who built it. Running ahead is just self-will in disguise—it is the subtle belief that God is moving too slowly and needs your initiative to speed things up.

2. Lagging Behind (Procrastination)

If you drag your feet behind Him out of fear, comfort, or hesitation, you risk losing sight of Him entirely. The further you fall behind, the louder the static of the world becomes, until His voice is completely drowned out and you are left sitting in the dark. Delayed obedience is still disobedience.

When you break stride, you trade the intimacy of His Presence for the exhaustion of your own Productivity. The Second Yes isn't an acceleration of your self-will; it is the total surrender of your timeline.

Presence over Productivity

Slowing down to match the deliberate pace of the Holy Spirit doesn't mean doing less; it means doing what matters with absolute presence. It shifts our focus from checking off tasks to being truly attuned to God's direction. We stop viewing a change in plans as a disruption and start viewing it as a divine redirection.

Scripture explicitly commands this intentional pause before we hurry off in an unguided sprint. In Psalm 46:10, God instructs us: "Be still, and know that I am God." In the original Hebrew, the phrase translated as "be still" (raphah) literally means to drop your hands, let go, or cease striving. It is an active command to stop frantically white-knuckling your circumstances long enough to recognize who is actually in control.

In Jeremiah 6:16, the Lord lays out a clear protocol for how we actually put those hands down and slow our pace at every juncture:

"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." — Jeremiah 6:16

Notice the strict order of operations. You do not charge ahead blindly into the day. In his classic work Sit, Walk, Stand, Watchman Nee observed a similar kingdom sequence in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: our spiritual life does not begin with frantic walking or spiritual work, but with sitting in the rest of Christ’s finished victory. Rest always precedes true movement. If you try to walk before you sit, or sprint before you stand at the crossroads, you are operating entirely in the energy of your own flesh.

Before any forward motion happens, God calls us through three distinct checkpoints:

• 1. Stand (Pause the Momentum): Stop your physical and mental hustle. Before you open your phone, check your email, or launch into your daily agenda, physically pause. Stop running long enough to acknowledge that you are at a crossroad and that your self-will is not qualified to lead.

• 2. Look (Inspect the Terrain): Pay attention to what is happening around you and inside you. Look at your motives, your fears, and the circumstances God has placed before you. Cease reacting on autopilot and observe where the world is pulling you versus where the Spirit is inviting you.

• 3. Ask (Seek Divine Direction): Inquire of the Lord through prayer and Scripture: "Where is the ancient path? What is the good way here?" Demand His direction over your own preference, refusing to move until you have aligned your heart with His voice.

Only after you stand, look, and ask does the command become walk in it.

The hustle of self-reliance convinces us that God only values us for what we produce for Him, driving us to run full-speed down whatever path opens up first. But the Guide on the narrow trail isn't looking for a high-speed laborer; He is inviting you into a shared journey.

When you yield your timeline to Him—pausing at the crossroads to drop your hands and seek the ancient path—the pressure to perform completely evaporates. You stop obsessing over how far down the trail you ought to be by now, and you start focusing entirely on taking the single step right in front of you in step with the Spirit.

Devotion has a speed limit. Step out of the frantic sprint of the world, surrender your personal schedule, and embrace the "Flexico" cadence of walking with the Spirit.

As soon as you slow down and begin matching His stride, a new temptation emerges. When your feet adjust to His cadence, your mind naturally starts demanding an itinerary. You look past the footstep right in front of you and ask: "Where is this trail taking me, and what does the rest of the route look like?"

That urge to inspect the route ahead is where the battle shifts from managing your pace to surrendering your control—moving us directly from following a map to trusting the Guide.