I really enjoy John Mark Comer and his book Garden City and was excited when I received this book for review. I enjoyed this book and the way the author takes us through his own struggle of eliminating hurry in his life and establishing rhythms. I felt that some of his ideas on how to implement sabbath in today's society was well thought out and challenging. I think if you are struggling with establishing those habits in your own life, you will feel challenged. If you have already made those things habits, I think you will feel this book is slightly redundant

Thank you to Netgalley and Waterbrook & Multnomah for a copy for my unbiased review

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer is a book making a case against hurry and hustle and the hectic pace of life these days. Instead, this book promotes the slow, simple way of life -- and it looks to Jesus on how to do this, as well as some personal recommendations and ideas from John Mark Comer. This is one of the best books I read this year, and I will be implementing some of the suggested practices into my life right away.

This is a very timely book. and one that which everyone I have spoken to about, has been hugely impacted by. John Mark Comer tackles societies mantra of always having to be in a hurry, and successful, and materialistic, with this book that takes us back to some strong biblical principles of slowing down, taking a sabbath, and living a truly counter cultural life. It isn't an easy read, because it will change you and challenge you, but it is an essential read.

This book will speak to the souls of the anxious, worried, restless, and often frustrated readers and give them hope and solution.

Incredibly needed and incredibly helpful. This takes a lot of useful literature both past and contemporary and not only puts a cohesive, pastoral perspective to it, but does so in a beautiful and compelling way. I can't wait to see what Comer writes next.

BOOK REVIEW - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- This book was so timely for me. I loved the vulnerability, the clarity and the depth! I also enjoyed the companion podcast. Great writing, clear messaging and applicable to life made a great combination for this book to be a win for me!

This book came highly recommended from one of my favorite podcasters and she did not lead me astray. A great book especially right now in this current pandemic when things are just starting to reopen and people are starting to reconsider normal.

John Mark Comer came to a point in his life when he realised that the way he was living, always being in a hurry, was not healthy. He decided he didn’t want to live that way any longer and so chose to do something about it. This book is a result of the changes he made. In his book, he passes on things he has learned from spending time alone with Jesus.

In Part 1, Comer considers ‘The Problem’.

Comer writes that Jesus wants to grow love, joy and peace in our lives and that all three are incompatible with hurry.

He writes that in our lives of hurry, we are, even if we do not realise it, losing our souls. We live without a sense of God’s presence with us because our attention is taken up with such things as our phones and our to-do lists. God is present but because our attention is taken up with other things, we are not aware of him.

In Part 2, Comer looks at ‘The Solution’.

The solution to our over-busy lives is not more time. If we had more time, we would just end up filling it up with more. The solution is “to slow down and simplify our lives around what really matters.”

Comer takes us back to the Bible to consider the teachings of Jesus and how it is possible for us to live in today’s fast-paced world as Jesus’ apprentices. He explains if we were to model our lives on Jesus, we would recover our souls.

In Part 3, Comer looks at Four Practices (habits, or disciplines) for Unhurrying Your Life.

• Silence and Solitude.
Silence is both external and internal. Solitude is alone time with God and with our soul. Comer helpfully explains what happens if we don’t practice this soul habit taught by Jesus and also the blessing to us when we do practice this discipline.

• Sabbath
Comer writes how Sabbath is more than one day a week but is actually a way of being in the world. Observing a weekly Sabbath enables us to live in this world for the whole week. I found it a challenging section and there are definitely some suggestions I want to put into practice.

• Simplicity
In this section, Comer shares his top twelve principles for practising simplicity.

• Slowing
Comer writes if we can slow down our body and mind, we can slow down our souls too. He gives some examples of how to practice the spiritual discipline of slowing.

Some of the ideas here and in other parts of his book I really like and want to put into practice. For me, now is a great time to do so, whilst we are still living restricted lives due to Covid-19. If I can practice them now, I can form some healthy habits ready for when life returns to some kind of normality and continue on with them for the rest of my life.

If you are tired with the way you are living, feeling hurried and overwhelmed, then this book is for you. It will show you there is a different, better way to live, one which is better for our Christian walk, for our emotional, physical and spiritual health and for our relationships with others.

Cromer writes from a Biblical perspective, drawing on the life and teaching of Jesus. I found his writing to be clear and easy to understand. There is plenty to think about, plenty to be challenged by and various practical suggestions to try.

Do you have any of these symptoms?

Irritability
Hypersensitivity
Restlessness
Workaholism
Lack of Self-Care
Slippage of Spiritual Disciplines

These symptoms point toward hurry sickness, per Pastor John Mark Comer.

This book was written pre-COVID-19. Prior to that, most of us didn't know how to slow down. Then we were forced to. This book proved prophetic to crashing our idols of productivity.

We were forced to confront our hurry sickness by sitting with ourselves.

Comer writes,

“Hurry and love are incompatible. All my worst moments as a father, a husband, and a pastor, even as a human being, are when I’m in a hurry—late for an appointment, behind on my unrealistic to-do list, trying to cram too much into my day.”

If we want to walk with God, we best stop running.

“There’s a reason people talk about ‘walking’ with God, not ‘running’ with God. It’s because God is love.”

The question now going forward is: Will we add hurry back into our lives again? Or will we maintain a slower pace of life?

“Very little can be done with hurry that can’t be done better without it. Especially our lives with God. And even our work for God.”

I know the pace will pick up some. It already has. But I don’t want to slide back into hurry. Because I believe this to be true:

“Hurry kills relationships. Love takes time; hurry doesn’t have it. It kills joy, gratitude, appreciation; people in a rush don’t have time to enter the goodness of the moment.”

I recommend this book to keep living a slower pace.

My thanks to Net Galley, WaterBrook & Multnomah for the review copy of this book.

I had been wanting to read this book for a while. A friend had recommended it as their top book of 2019, so it had a lot to live up to, but I’m almost certain it will end up being one of my favourite books of 2020.
It’s an interesting book to read at a time when much of the normal hurry has been ruthlessly eliminated in such an extreme way, but surely this is a good opportunity to stop and evaluate life.
John Mark Comer gets to the point quickly, describing hurry as “the great enemy of spiritual life”. He explores the “history of speed” (how the pace of life has got faster and faster) and looks at some of the consequences for our emotional, mental and spiritual health.
Then he moves on to look for answers. His conclusion:
“The solution to an overbusy life is not more time. It’s to slow down and simplify our lives around what really matters.”
He points us to the example of Jesus to look at how to do this, as well as sharing some practical advice, and his own experience of practices such as solitude, silence and simplifying that have helped him to live a less hurried life.
It is a great book – easy to read, but full of wisdom, and very thought-provoking.

What an excellent and timely read. I will reference it again and again, more than just about Sabbath (which I think is great) but about what it really means to slow life down.

It’s true that our greatest strength can also become our greatest weakness. In this mothering life, it’s a great mercy that I can fold laundry, listen to a podcast, and monitor dinner on the stove, all while pondering the introduction for my next book review. The real question is, “Can I stop the multi-tasking when I should? Can I devote my undivided attention to the words of a son on the phone or to the excited ramblings of my blue-eyed granddaughter?”

The answer is sad, but hopeful: Not without focused intention in that direction.

Motivation for this improvement in my life has come recently from the writing of John Mark Comer. In a season of preaching six times every Sunday (!!!), he stopped long enough to ask, “What if I changed my life?” He captures that journey away from a life of hurry and his movement toward an embrace of Jesus’s easy yoke and light burden in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World.

I read Comer’s invitation to “live freely and lightly” while on vacation.
He’s simply echoing the words of Jesus:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Exchanging the Hurry-Up Lifestyle
Perfect, right? Watching all the frenzied souls teeming through airports and lined up in city traffic, I could nod my head virtuously and agree fully with his premise that “hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.” (Loc 288) But here’s the catch: In my everyday, non-vacationing life, there is SO much that needs doing, and I don’t have a staff! I wear several hats, and everything I do is important (to someone, anyway).

How do I exchange my own hurry-up lifestyle for something closer to what Jesus modeled? How do I avoid the trap John Ortberg describes: “The great danger is not that we will reounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives istead of actually living them.” (Loc 388)

The solution Comer tenders is unpopular and is certainly not the stuff bestsellers are made of:

Accept your limitations. Accept Jesus’s easy yoke.”

Jesus’s Easy Yoke
In New Testament times, “the yoke” was a way of thinking about a teacher’s manner of reading Torah. Jesus describes his own way of shouldering the load as “easy,” and twelve men apprenticed under him in that invitation to the easy yoke. Eugene Peterson referred to this as “the unforced rhythms of grace,” which sounds delightfully theological, but, as with many things in life, huge changes come with the accumulation of a number of small lifestyle adjustments.

With that in mind, how can a 21st-century hurry-addicted Enneagram 3 adopt the lifestyle of Jesus?

Comer traces hurry to three momentous historic inventions:

The Roman sundial by which we began to measure and slice and dice our hours;
The light bulb by which we began to extend our productivity and shrink our sleep;
The smart phone by which we carry the world in our pocket.
He then goes on to describe and to offer guidelines for adopting a rule of life that makes room for interruptions (which may actually turn out to be the main thing after all) and to leave room for prayer, rest, and healthy community. Spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude, sabbath, simplicity, and slowing sound quaint and even liturgical to modern ears, and yet they are medicine for the contiually rushing and anxious soul.

Practical applications of a slowing lifestyle might include driving the speed limit, choosing the longest line at the grocery store, setting mindful limits around the tyranny of email, limiting social media and television, or purposefully choosing to remember how to single-task. Now that I’m back from vacation, I have begun putting these adjustments to the test–the question being not, “Will they work?” (I can see that the suggestions make abundant sense.) Rather the real question is this:

“Can I embrace, by faith, an unhurried life and trust that what I have accomplished in my allotted time is all that God intended for me to do?”

We’ll see…

Many thanks to Waterbrook Multomah for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which, of course, is offered freely and with honesty.

This was definitely one of my favorite reads in 2019. I think we all know that our lives are moving at pace that feels too fast for us. We love the thrill of the ride, but when we look back, we realized we’ve missed the delights of the scenery along the way. Is that the feeling I want to have when my life comes to a close, or do I want to soak in the time that I have and use it to the glory of my King? John Mark Comer writes in an engaging and friendly way, while presenting some profound (and often convicting) truth. In an age where just the words “spiritual discipline” make people cringe, he gets you excited with his zeal and practicality. He makes what feels daunting accessible to anyone. Comer gives a thoughtful, yet practical examination for the need of Sabbath in our lives, as well as teaching the command to partake from the scriptures. The practices found in this book are simple, but are likely far from easy for the average American.
Whether or not you think you lead a life that is too busy, I think this is a good read for any believer. Exchange your busyness for Sabbath, and watch your life transform.

Spiritual disciplines for the millennial from a very thoughtful perspective. I found this title to be very refreshing, approachable, and honest.

An excellent book. I heard John Mark on a podcast and was so excited to get to read his book. I have recommended it to countless friends.

The world needs more books like this. Books that challenge the status quo and encourage readers to look beyond for something more life giving, more centered around Christ and his call on our lives. This book is all that. Theologically sound. Easy to read. Maybe not easy to implement but definitely worth the struggle against cultural norms. I finished this book in a day. Now I need to go back and read it again... and again. This will stay on my shelf as a reference as I seek to live this type of Christ centered more contemplative style life.
I received a copy of this book from netgalley. This has in no way influenced my review. All thoughts are my own.

With simplicity and frankness, Comer invites the reader to consider what he sees as the problems caused in our culture and society by our obsession with, and overwhelming tendency to, hurry. He compares those problems to what the Gospels tell us of the way Jesus lived. Then he lays out some of the practices that he has found to be helpful in orienting his life toward the latter rather than the former. The book reads as though you were having a conversation with a kind, wise friend who was pointing you towards a better way, without guilting or shaming you for the way you'd been living up to that point. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will be recommending it to others.

This book is a game changer. It's also one of the few "Christian Living" books that I would highly recommend for someone who isn't affiliated with the faith as it shows how the way of Jesus is a path to rescue us from the "Hurry disease" of the world. Comer writes in an easy to follow and conversive style without sacrificing depth. In a world where "I'm good, just busy" is seen as a norm, Comer points out that it should be a red flag and addresses why. This isn't your average everyday rule of life book - it's a challenge to the framework of our lives (which contains encouragement and guidance on how to move forward). Will probably continually return to read this title over the years.

Really enjoyed this book as it addressed a common problem we all face today: hurry. Appreciate the author’s tone and suggestions to eliminate hurry. It was interesting how he weaved in personal examples along with history. Great read and will definitely recommend to friends and family!

I really enjoyed this book by John Mark Comer. Although I'm familiar with his work, this is the first of his books I've read - and it didn't disappoint. Over the course of 2019, I've read a number of books on the importance of spiritual disciplines, saying no to hurry and distraction and standing up against the culture of "busy" we live in - and this was one of, by far, the best.
I appreciated his transparency about his own personal experience - and the realistic challenges that come when we start to eliminate hurry from our lives. I enjoyed the way he integrated truths from greats like Dallas Willard with his own thoughts, as well as Scripture. The way he introduced the idea of becoming an "apprentice of Jesus" in today's world was thought provoking and very fitting.
While I didn't necessarily agree with every practice or discipline he highlighted or encouraged, I was okay with that - because the concept of being an "apprentice of Jesus" is one I can accurately figure out how to apply in my own life - and for that, I'm thankful.