The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

John Mark Comer

5/5

"I loved it"

A very good book. The book first lays out the dire situation we are in- if I had to pick a thesis statement for this book, it would be:

We are… distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.

— Ronald Rolheiser. We, as Americans, are way too busy cramming our lives full of stuff and activities we think will make us happy, but if to follow Jesus’s example, we need to slow down.

Reading this book confirmed a lot of the things I was already considering or doing— dropping social media, losing focus on worldly success, focusing on friendships and life-giving activities. I strongly recommend reading this book. Beware: it’s easy to forget a lot of these things, and go back to normal life. Try to make changes in your life. Otherwise, what was the point of reading it?

One immediate change I noticed after reading this book is that I pray more. Because I choose to “be bored,” I find that I have plenty of opportunities to pray.

Notes

4 steps of discipline:

  1. Silence and Solitude.
    • Jesus, in the Gospels, chose multiple times to seek silence/solitude/prayer.
    • When we avoid this, we:
      • End up feeling distant from God (I can relate)
      • Feel distant from ourselves
      • Feel exhausted
      • Turn to our escapes
    • When we embrace this, we:
      • Start to feel more.
      • Start to know who we are.
  2. Sabbath
    • Human desire is infinite; only God satisfies this. We are not meant to detach from all desire (e.g. Buddhism), but point it towards God; to reach a place where we no longer need anything to live a happy, restful life.
    • Sabbath comes from Shabbat, which means “to stop” or “to enjoy”.
    • The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
      —Jesus

    • Make Sabbath a day you enjoy and look forward to! It’s for rest and worship. When practicing Sabbath, ask yourself “is this rest or worship?”
  3. Simplicity
    • Gospel of America: the more you have, the happier you’ll be.
    • Why don’t we work 3 hours a day and have robots do all our work? Because we, as a nation, have chosen money and stuff over time.
    • Choose time over money and stuff.
    • ”You cannot serve both God and money.” It says cannot, not should not!
  4. Slowness

Changes

Reminders