What if the formula “more stuff equals more happiness” is bad math? What if more stuff often just equals more stress? More hours at the office, more debt, more years working in a job I don’t feel called to, more time wasted cleaning and maintaining and fixing and playing with and organizing and reorganizing and updating all that junk I don’t even need. What if more stuff actually equals less of what matters most? Less time. Less financial freedom. Less generosity, which according to Jesus is where the real joy is. Less peace, as I hurry my way through the mall parking lot. Less focus on what life is actually about. Less mental real estate for creativity. Less relationships. Less margin. Less prayer. Less of what I actually ache for? What if I were to reject my culture’s messaging as a half-truth at best, if not a full-on lie, and live into another message? Another gospel?” But honestly: everything I have to offer you, I’m stealing from the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, my rabbi, and so much more. 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 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” Part three: Four practices for unhurrying your life Number One: Silence and solitude, or the “Eremos”

The reality is, most of us are just too busy to live an emotionally healthy and spirituality vibrant life. Hurry is incompatible with the way of Jesus. The love, joy, and peace that form the nucleus of Jesus’ kingdom are all impossible in a life of speed. We must, as Willard went on to say, “Ruthlessly eliminate hurry.” John writes those words down and waits for more wise insights from Dallas. “That’s a good one. Now what else is there?” Dallas’s answer? “There is nothing else.” Escapist behaviors—When we’re too tired to do what’s actually life giving for our souls, we each turn to our distraction of choice: overeating, overdrinking, binge-watching Netflix, browsing social media, surfing the web, looking at porn—name your preferred cultural narcotic. These habits of Jesus, which we can learn to imitate, are for a purpose beyond the change we can work on our own; rather, “They are how we open our minds and bodies to a power far beyond our own and effect change.” 8 They make room for the Holy Spirit to work. Comer quotes Dallas Willard’s definition of a spiritual discipline: In this would be my only criticism. The book tilts toward a "how to" manual for reorganizing your hurried life, much like someone might read a manual on how to reorganize a cluttered closet. While JMC offers many caveats that "this isn't legalism" that he's offering, without a clear infusion of the power of the gospel for the harried and hurried, alas the book can come across as just another self-help book with a dash of religion thrown in for good measure.I just hit thirty (level three!), so I have a little time under my belt. Enough to chart a trajectory to plot the character arc of my life a few decades down the road. 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. ↩ In this truth lies the secret of the easy yoke: the secret involves living as [Jesus] lived in the entirety of his life—adopting his overall life-style…. Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the “second mile,” turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully—while living the rest of our lives just as everyone else around us does…. It’s a strategy bound to fail.

I’ve never felt such joy while being so deeply convicted. This book really might change my life and I’m excited to lean into the way of life it presents, the unhurried lifestyle of Jesus Christ. Comer spoke directly to my anxious, restless and often frustrated soul with humor, and honesty, and deep wisdom. This book confronted the realities of my sin and my hurry which prevent me from love, joy, and peace. Yet it also gently and convincingly presented a solution, a solution embedded in Jesus’ own approach to life! Embracing our limits and inviting discipline (budgeting, limiting TV watching, limiting social events) into our lives will bring us closer to God. Following Jesus means emulating every part of his life - the slow and unhurried pace included. John Mark Comer's transparency invites us to reconsider how we live our lives by getting straight to the point: if we don't eliminate our busyness, we just may eliminate our souls. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry will inspire you to make the hard but practical choices that will utterly change your trajectory for the better." --Gabe Lyons, president of Q Ideas and author of Good Faith There are those rare books that every single waking person needs to immediately go read. This is that book. We've found no better conversation or a more much-needed antidote to our culture's problem of busyness and hurry than John Mark's words in this book. Beyond helpful and encouraging and insightful to us!" --Alyssa and Jefferson Bethke, New York Times best-selling authors of Jesus > Religion and Love That LastsWe live in a world that highly values productivity and hurry, celebrating the people who can "do it all". The church, sadly, often shares this same value. Yet this way of living has left nearly all of us, myself included, feeling empty, burned out, and weary. In this book, John Mark weaves teaching and insight with his own story of the struggle between the desire to prove his worth/do it all and the desire to actually enjoy his life, his ministry, his family, and, mostly, being a disciple Jesus. I put off reading this for a long time but am so glad I finally did it! Enjoy my really long review: 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. From Matthew 11: 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. Comer is a voracious reader and I love that he embellishes his own thoughts with those of many who've both gone before him or doing life presently. We share many of the same 'literary' heroes but he's also introduced me to a number of his that I was less familiar with.

The last half of the book is his offering on how to do that, pointing the reader in the direction of "solitude, sabbath, simplicity and slowing." If the alliteration reminds you of many sermon strategies, well, JMC is a pastor and this should not be surprising. But this is not necessarily a sermon series turned into book form like many popular preachers do. (Maybe it was a sermon series, but didn't strike me as such). His admonition and advice is rooted in biblical wisdom, but this is not a book in which the Book is thrown at the reader, nor is it one that exposits the Bible closely. It has as much sage advice as it does scripture citation, and while his "four practices for eliminating hurry" can certainly be found in scripture, this is not a Bible study guide. It therefore weakens his thesis for the biblically conversant reader but perhaps makes it more palatable to the unbeliever.Soooo big caveat I should have read the synopsis/done more research before just diving into this book. I definitely didn’t realize there would be such a heavy religious perspective. That being said, I didn’t want not being Christian to stop me from giving the book a chance, especially because the topic was intriguing. But it did end up meaning that a lot of the book I just didn’t relate to. Again, not a fault of the book, that one is on me.

It wasn’t the response he expected, but it was—and continues to be—the answer he needs. Too often we treat the symptoms of toxicity in our modern world instead of trying to pinpoint the cause. A growing number of voices are pointing at hurry, or busyness, as a root of much evil. Jesus’ life was characterized by specific practices that are most often referred to today as “spiritual disciplines.” Comer simply calls them “the practices of Jesus,” or “the habits of Jesus.” These latter terms help underline how earthy they really are, directly impacting our bodies and minds. The point of these practices or habits is to enable a fuller, richer relationship with God; when they become an end in themselves, we veer into legalism. Also quite random, but I appreciate his sensitivity to what we consume through movies and tv shows. I have felt pretty alone in my views on the nature of media consumption, but I felt very known and justified in my opinions which were now put to words.One of the surprising things I learned when I began to practice Sabbath is that to really enjoy the seventh day, you have to slow down the other six days. Number Three: Simplicity The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” meets at the intersection of faith and minimalism, arguing that our consumer-driven, rat-race culture leaves us stressed, sad, and separated from God. All in all, Comer does a really good job diagnosing the problem with our culture - mainly, the fact that Americans are obsessed with "hurry," and it's a real problem. However, I think that this book doesn't really identify the larger problem of our world and our own hearts: the corrupting presence of sin that will remain no matter how simple or unhurried we make our life. Thus, it doesn't seem to offer the correct antidote to the larger problem and the glorious redemption that is awaiting those who live by faith in Jesus Christ. Though our cultural moment may be in need of more hurry-contrarians, our culture needs Christ all the more. I’ve reorganized my life around three very simple goals : Slow down. Simplify my life around the practices of Jesus. Live from a center of abiding.