A Response to John Mark Comer's Ruthless Elimination of Hurry
John Mark Comer’s Ruthless Elimination of Hurry offers a startling antidote to the unceasing, frenetic rush of the contemporary world. From the opening chapters’ incisive diagnosis of our cultural malaise to the four-pronged practical application of his premise at the book’s end, Comer preaches a simple message: just. slow. down. Or, as Dallas Willard put it, “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life” (Comer, 19). In other words, permitting busyness to overtake your days is tantamount to forfeiting a Spirit-filled life. Would you walk with Jesus? Slow down, rest, and filter out distractions in order to worship. By the time Comer turns his full attention to the key spiritual discipline of Sabbath, he has already mentioned it over a dozen times, and has spoken of the twin concept, rest, two dozen times more. But Sabbath rest, as Comer presents it, is purposeful, not lethargic; rest gives the disciple space to worship. Scheduled rest—the rhythmic setting down of all distractions and halting of all work—is key, he argues, to actually operating as an apprentice of Jesus.
“What a trellis is to a vine, a rule of life is to abiding. It’s a structure—in this case a schedule and a set of practices—to set up abiding as the central pursuit of your life” (Comer, 95). This call to structure and intentionality was, for me, the most convicting part of Comer’s argument. It’s undeniable, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets” (Comer, 85). For all my lip service to the importance of Sabbath, an unpracticed idea is worthless. While Sabbath is actually something I’ve given a lot of thought to, I have not established the necessary structure to pull it off. Sundays (or Saturdays, when my husband has to preach) find me catching up on housework and laboring to feed the people. Procrastination (and laziness) bear the fruit of unrest, robbing me of sweet worship and uninterrupted play. And so the simplest application point of the book for me is to plan ahead—prep some meals to pop straight into the oven, get the chores done the day before. On his website, Comer uses the language “day of preparation”—the vital pre-Sabbath wind-down that makes a day of rest possible. Practically, that means you can’t start planning your Sabbath on the Sabbath. It’s what you do the day before that really counts.
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World
John Mark Comer is a pastor in Portland who maintains that if we are following Jesus well, people on both the left and right side of the aisle will be frustrated with us. He writes about spiritual formation and cultural pressures in a breezy, statistic-packed style that is both fascinating and convicting.
(Waterbrook Press, 2019)
I also found Comer’s description of the Sabbath as a kind of mini-holiday challenging. My children, of course, look forward to Christmas. But for a trio of pastor’s kids to associate Sabbath with crankiest-day-of-the-week, most stressful, least joyful—well, that’s a tragedy. I lament that two of our children are already off to college and unable to get a do-over on Sabbath, but I would like to start a new family tradition—a weekly feast day, game day, day of celebration. Maybe it’s not too late to redeem their time at home, to make every homecoming a trip to Rivendell. To Sabbath not just by stopping, but by delight (Comer, 155) is key.
Finally, the idea of “Sabbath as resistance,” Sabbath as a gift to our neighbors, is extremely convicting. While I grumble that Chick-Fil-A is closed every Sunday, I know the weekly break offers a respite to their employees (and allows our unbelieving neighbors at least the chance to go to church). My “need” to run to the store or eat out or even spend money online contributes to the relentless pace and misplaced priorities of our broken culture. Sabbath, to the extent that I practice it, is an act of social justice, and it’s only selfishness that keeps me from acknowledging this.
“To be one of Jesus’ talmidim is to apprentice under Jesus. Put simply, it’s to organize your life around three basic goals: Be with Jesus. Become like Jesus. Do what he would do if he were you” (Comer, 77). A Sabbath apprenticeship might just create the ideal conditions for deeper roots, greater joy, and simple obedience to our sweet Savior. I am motivated to try again.
Catherine Morgan serves as Director of Communications at Tennent. With her husband, Michael, she lives in Woodland Park, CO, and wakes up daily delighted to take in the view. She is the author of Thirty Thousand Days and Sparrow: Cultivating a Sabbatical Heart.