The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

What a remarkable book. Avoids so many clothes of similar Christian books, written with warmth and winsomeness. But more, it is immensely helpful and potentially life-changing in very tangible, real ways. It is a beautiful invitation which I pray my family has the courage to really follow through on and respond to. Comer is undoubtedly right in his diagnosis of our culture and our souls, and is truly recapturing ancient biblical wisdom in his prescription. Though many may quibble with some of the specific lengths he goes to in some of his recommendations, he is not so much of a radical that the book is inaccessible. We always need prophetic voices who will carry the message to lengths we never will in order to model for us what life could be and where we want to go. And for that, I am so grateful for the life change that led Comer to inhabit the life that led to this book. I pray we all may do the same.

This was honestly better than I expected. This book got a lot of hype, and I was very critical of the only other book I've read by JMC due to some pretty significant differences between historic Christianity and JMC's theology, however I loved this book a ton. JMC seemed to put flesh on ideas that have been floating for a while in my head related to hustle, Sabbath, & materialism. A lot of what he discusses (such as silence & solitude) will be viewed my many modern Christians as new ideas, yet this couldn't be further from the truth. JMC retrieves many practices of the early church such as were practiced by monks under Saint Benedict's Rule for example and even the practices of Jesus himself.

Although I've given high praise for this book, I did find objection to the lack of encouragement to seek God's Word in silence & solitude. Silence and solitude is great, but a person who never reads God's word has nothing to dwell on! JMC seems to hint at ‘hearing from God' while practicing silence & solitude but ... we have already heard from Him in the Bible, God's very own word!

My minor second critique would simply be some of JMC's off-hand comments seemed unhelpful, distasteful, and rude. He even makes a jab at ‘conservative Christianity'. If he meant ‘Republican Christianity' then it's probably a jab well-deserved ... but did he mean ‘theological conservatism'? Is he siding with theological liberalism? Hopefully not. Comments such as this from time to time in the book threw me off and left a bad taste in the mouth.

Overall, this is a great book which I thoroughly enjoyed, but not an endorsement for every single sentence. As always read with an open mind ... but an open Bible as well! There are some great ideas in this book.

Chew the meat, spit out the bones.