A book review
We recently read “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer. This book encourages Christ followers to slow down and “live the quiet life” and gives real life examples of how hurrying can negatively affect our emotional, physical, and spiritual lives. Western culture glorifies achievement and busyness, but the way of Jesus is slow and intentional. In his book Comer offers practical advice on ways to unhurry your life and take up the easy yoke of Jesus.
Here’s two of our favorite takeaways:
Loving Well
“Hurry and love are incompatible” p. 23
As believers, we are called to love the people around us. This often requires us to make sacrifices with our time and slow down when people need us. Hurry also often makes us frazzled and irritable and prone to dismissing people and things that we perceive as getting in the way. Can you recall a time when you were in a rush or overwhelmed because of your to-do list and it caused you to react poorly to someone seeking your attention? Do you think you can love well if you haven’t created any space to slow down and give people your time?
Margin
“I’m struck by how fiercely present Jesus was” p. 91
Jesus was a busy man with a full schedule. However, if we were to examine the way he lived and went through his days we’d see that he wasn’t hurried. John Mark describes the story in Mark 5:24-34 where Jesus was interrupted on his way to heal a sick girl by the woman with a bleeding issue as “…a beautiful story where Jesus just took all the time in the world with her. No rush at all (p. 90).” Jesus was present in every moment, even the moments where he was on his way to take care of something else. Instead of brushing off the woman asking for his help he paused to be with her, and still managed to heal the sick girl as well. Jesus was able to accomplish all his tasks even with an interruption because he had enough time and margin in his life to pause—though he was busy he didn’t cram every moment full.
Check back next week for part 2!
If you’d like to read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry it can be found on Amazon and Thriftbooks.
