The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world

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Jesus’ teachings on wealth run counter to American society, where achievement and accumulation are the way to happiness. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Never has a generation needed a book as much as this. John Mark has beautifully written a remedy for our overworked and tired souls." --Jeremy and Audrey Roloff, New York Times best-selling authors of A Love Letter Life Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet. The ideas themselves I liked and will be trying but I wish the author gave more concrete examples on how to execute. There’s actually an online workbook that’s linked at the end of the book that I thought was soo helpful, I wish he just included that in the book itself, don’t know why he didn’t. Because without that most of the book was one of two things: 1) How we got to having such rushed lives and why it is bad for us (which I think the person reading is generally aware of hence why they are reading the book?) and 2) why each of his four ideas are important/help (with heavy emphasis here on sourcing the Bible and Jesus). We hear the refrain “I’m great, just busy” so often we assume pathological busyness is okay. After all, everybody else is busy too. But what if busyness isn’t healthy? What if it’s an airborne contagion, wreaking havoc on our collective soul?” Our personalities and emotional wiring. We have only so much capacity. I’m an introvert. I’m actually deeply relational, but my relational plate is small. I’m also melancholy by nature. I hate to admit it, but some people have a lot more capacity than I do.

We all waste time. All of us. And that can be ok, as long we are making conscious decisions. We need recreation, too. According to a pastor-theologian friend of mine, the original word for ‘rule’ comes from the Greek word ‘canon’ that meant ‘trellis.’ Either way, the image is the same. ↩ But resting and worship--anything to index your heart toward grateful recognition of God’s reality and goodness. Image and dust. To be made in the image of God means that we’re rife with potential. We have the Divine’s capacity in our DNA. We’re like God. We were created to “image” his behavior, to rule like he does, to gather up the raw materials of our planet and reshape them into a world for human beings to flourish and thrive. But that’s only half the story. We’re also made from the dirt, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”: we’re the original biodegradable containers. Which means we’re born with limitations. We’re not God. We’re mortal, not immortal. Finite, not infinite. Image and dust” To restate: love, joy, and peace are at the heart of all Jesus is trying to grow in the soil of your life. And all three are incompatible with hurry.

I have absolutely no idea what it means. But it means something, I know. As he said it, I felt my soul tremor under God. But what is God saying to me?What if you had only what you needed, and there wasn’t anything to organize? There’s an idea worth chasing down. If a vine doesn’t have a trellis, it will die. And if your life with Jesus doesn’t have some kind of structure to facilitate health and growth, it will wither away. 11

Part three is the development of silence and solitude, sabbath, simplicity and slowing as spiritual disciplines. John Mark asks one simple question: How did Jesus do it? These are four practices he has adopted in his life to improve his relationship with time. The outcomes are improved relationships in every sphere of his life. Each section is full of advice on why they are essential and how they can become daily, weekly and monthly habits. Implementing a practice of simplicity is easier in some instances that others. Truly observing the Sabbath, for example, means turning off the phone and the TV and spending one day a week on being present, grateful, and narrowing our focus down to what truly matters to us.We are being invited to stop trying to shoulder everything ourselves--to use brute force and speed to control outcomes we cannot control anyway. That’s the goal, the end, the vision of success : a quiet life. Of all the adjectives on offer, Paul opts for quiet. Not loud. Not important. Not even impactful. Just quiet. I would love to see more writing on recalibrating the heart when legalism seeps into the practice of spiritual disciplines. I know in my life that my sabbaths can become more important than actually setting apart time for God. So often, I get caught up thinking about doing my quiet time ‘right’ instead of just doing it. We all know that legalism is a dangerous path to go down. So how do we get legalism out of our spiritual disciplines when it manages to seep in? And to conclude… Ok wow! Definitely convicted of the way I currently live life & so many practical ways I can change my unhealthy habits. For sure not taking his advice about having only 2 grey shirts….but will be taking many other practices. Loved the chapter on Sabbath & solitude/silence.

A helpful and important read. The steps JMC outlines are essential, and I want to do a better job at practicing them. Huge respect for the way he has rejected the pressures of public life for a better way, one that we should all take: slowing down, simplifying, and Sabbathing. The older I get, the more I understand that these make a life well lived. My Uber ride home to binge-watch Keanu Reeves was five years and as many lifetimes ago. So much has changed since then. This little book was born out of my short and mostly uneventful autobiography, my journey from a life of hurry to a life of, well, something else. Comer meets with John Ortberg, a California-based pastor and writer, who shares a story about Dallas Williard, who was a philosopher and spiritual leader at USC: I expect I'll be buying copies to distribute to friends and I hope the impact of Comer's words is felt far and wide to help influence a revival in the lives of the church community to discover this 'easy yoke' that Jesus invites us to adopt. This book was recommended by Dharius Daniels which really put "things" into perspective and gets you of the hamster wheel of life.Comer makes some good points about avoiding an addiction to phones or social media. It was good to hear that again (see also 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You). At the same time, I cringed at his basic, almost condescending advice like "make a budget" or "drive below the speed limit" or "write in a journal." I already knew much of what he says, and I already practice much of what he recommends. I already set timers to limit my time on social media. I already understand minimalism. I already cook at home most days. I already have a budget. This book didn't introduce me to anything new, and the advice didn't hit me very hard. As Amy says, it's mostly forgettable. At least for me. Never has a generation needed a book as much as this. John Mark has beautifully written a remedy for our overworked and tired souls.” —Jeremy and Audrey Roloff, New York Timesbest-selling authors of A Love Letter Life Our giftings. On a similar note as above, I will simply never have the giftings of many of the people I most look up to. Comparison just eats away at our joy, doesn’t it? Another long silence… Willard: “There is nothing else. Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” Evil in the form of distraction