The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry | Book Review
I received John Mark Comer’s book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, from my grown daughter as a Christmas gift last year. Ironically, I laughed aloud and declared, “I’ll read this when the busyness of life slows down…whenever that will be!?!” Only a couple of months later, busy life as we knew it came to a screeching halt with governmental “stay at home” orders, and I picked up Comer’s book to read it. At the time I was also reading Richard Foster’s book, The Celebration of Discipline, and I found so many parallel concepts between these books! Both are about the spiritual disciplines intended to bring followers of Christ closer to the heart of God. Comer’s book is engaging, practical and easy to read, and I highly recommend it.
John Mark Comer is a teaching pastor, husband, and father in the Pacific Northwest, and he describes himself as an “apprentice” to Jesus. He shares his own story of near burnout as the pastor of a megachurch and his purposeful shift toward staying emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world. He recognizes that many people in America are “too busy to follow Jesus,” (pg. 122) which leads to a harried and stressed society. Comer speaks to this reader when he suggests a solution on page 82:
“If you want to experience the life of Jesus, you have to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus”
Comer took the coined phrase from Dallas Willard, “Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life” for his book title (pg. 19) in the collective desire to examine how hurry is harming our souls because “both sin and busyness have the same effect- they cut off your connection to God”. (pg. 20) Comer also argues that “hurry is a form of violence on the soul”. (pg. 47) The way of Jesus is the way of love, and “hurry and love are incompatible”. (pg. 23)
Four applicable answers to modern society’s tendency to hurry are offered in the book on page 247:
Silence and Solitude
Sabbath
Simplicity
Slowing
These four practices are given in the book with tried-and-true examples from John Mark’s own life to come back to God and our true selves as He has created us to be. His conversation on Sabbath affected me the most as I considered this practice of not just stopping, but also adding “delight” to my Sabbath rest. (pg. 155) Comer builds a good argument about the only spiritual discipline listed in the Ten Commandments, Sabbath, as being the one practice that is life-giving, creativity-producing, and a certain connection to God.
