The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

When was the last time you truly felt unhurried—present in the moment, at peace in your own skin, fully alive to God, yourself, and others? In The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, pastor and author John Mark Comer argues that the chronic speed and busyness of modern life aren’t just unhealthy—they’re nothing less than soul-destroying. Comer contends that hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day, cutting off our ability to experience love, joy, and peace. To reclaim the way of Jesus, he insists, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives.

Drawing deeply on the wisdom of his mentor, philosopher and spiritual writer Dallas Willard, Comer blends personal narrative, cultural analysis, and ancient spiritual practices to show that the solution isn’t simply time management or efficiency hacks. Rather, it’s a radical reorientation of our lives—learning to live at the relaxed, deliberate, loving pace of Jesus of Nazareth, who was never in a hurry.

The Core Problem: Hurry as a Disease of the Soul

Comer opens with the story of his own near-burnout as a megachurch pastor in Portland. Despite outward success—thousands attending his church, book deals, acclaim—he confesses that he had become emotionally empty and spiritually numb. Late nights on the couch, dead-tired yet wired, symbolized the inner deadness of a life run too fast. When he asked spiritual giant Dallas Willard how to live like the person he wanted to become, Willard’s blunt reply was: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” That single insight became Comer’s marching orders.

The modern epidemic of hurry isn’t merely a matter of busy schedules—it’s a symptom of deeper issues of identity, fear, and misplaced desire. Comer describes hurry as a “form of violence on the soul,” one that erodes relationships, creativity, joy, and our capacity for God. Our culture glorifies productivity and efficiency, teaching us to measure worth by how much we achieve or own. In the process, we become perpetually distracted, pathologically busy, and spiritually starved.

From Problem to Path: The Way of the Easy Yoke

Against the modern obsession with speed, Comer points us to Jesus’ famous invitation in Matthew 11: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened… take my yoke upon you… for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus offers not escape from life’s demands but a different way to bear them: his lifestyle. Comer calls this “the secret of the easy yoke”: If you want to experience the life of Jesus, you must adopt the lifestyle of Jesus. That means practicing slowness, simplicity, rest, and attentiveness—the very rhythms that marked the Savior’s own days.

Jesus, Comer argues, was the most joyful and fully alive human being to ever live, yet he moved through the world with calm and deliberation. He had time to stop for interruptions, to pray in solitude, to enjoy meals, to sleep, and to walk rather than run. Modern disciples tend to adopt Jesus’ beliefs without adopting his way of life, leading to spiritual exhaustion. To live differently, Comer invites us to structure our days around what ancient monks called a rule of life—a set of intentional practices that help us “abide” in God’s presence.

The Four Practices That Recalibrate the Soul

The heart of Comer’s approach is four countercultural practices drawn from the way of Jesus: Silence and Solitude, Sabbath, Simplicity, and Slowing. Each is designed to create margin, awareness, and peace by aligning our outer lives with our deepest spiritual values.

• Silence and Solitude train you to get quiet before God, breaking free from digital noise and recovering presence.
• Sabbath anchors your week in rest and worship, a rhythm that resists the culture of productivity.
• Simplicity strips away material clutter and consumer excess to focus on what truly matters.
• Slowing is the art of deliberately reducing the speed of your body and mind to reclaim peace.

Together, these practices act as a trellis that supports the vine of an abundant, Spirit-filled life. Like spiritual gardening, they don’t produce life on their own—they create conditions for grace to grow.

Why This Message Matters

Comer’s message hits a nerve in an era of burnout, anxiety, and distraction. Drawing on research about technology, overwork, and attention span collapse (he notes the average phone user touches their device 2,617 times a day), Comer exposes how speed not only degrades our mental health but also diminishes our ability to be human. By returning to the slow, relational cadence of the Gospels, we find not only rest but recovery of our souls.

Ultimately, Comer’s argument is both spiritual and social: the kingdom of God is not a high-speed chase but a slow walk in love. To follow Jesus is to embrace limits—not as constraints, but as pathways to freedom. It’s to choose presence over productivity, peace over pressure, being over doing. The ruthless elimination of hurry, he insists, is not about self-improvement—it’s about rediscovering how to be fully alive.

Comer begins by naming hurry as the defining spiritual sickness of our time. Borrowing from Dallas Willard’s insight, he writes that hurry is “the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.” It sabotages our capacity for love, steals our attention, and fragments the soul. Through humor and honesty, Comer reflects on how he, like many moderns, confused productivity with worthiness—and how that confusion nearly cost him his health and faith.

Hurry and the Death of Love

At its core, hurry is incompatible with love. Love requires time—time to pay attention, to listen, to be patient—and hurry steals exactly that. Comer asks readers to notice how irritability and impatience rise whenever we’re rushing. He echoes psychologist Carl Jung’s diagnosis: “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.” The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace—cannot grow in a hurried life. They require the cultivated soil of presence.

Pathological Busyness

Citing studies by Michael Zigarelli and sociologist Jacques Le Goff, Comer shows that busyness has become a badge of honor—a status symbol. Across social classes, people respond to “How are you?” with “Busy.” But as he notes, pathological busyness doesn’t just harm emotional health; it erodes spiritual depth. We skim instead of dwell. We pray in snippets, if at all. We multitask through conversations. And, in doing so, we lose intimacy with God and the people around us.

Psychologist Ronald Rolheiser calls this “spiritual oblivion”: we distract ourselves to death, numbing the ache of our own emptiness with screens, success, and stimulation. Comer likens it to being “distracted from distraction by distraction,” quoting the poet T.S. Eliot. In such a climate, genuine spiritual growth—slow, interior, relationship-based—becomes nearly impossible.

The Slow Speed of Love

By contrast, Jesus lived at the “three-mile-an-hour speed of love” (a phrase from Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama). He walked everywhere. He paused to notice flowers, to dine slowly with friends, to touch the sick, to listen to the lonely. Comer insists this wasn’t incidental—it was essential. It demonstrated the pace of God himself. To walk with Jesus means matching his pace, not asking him to hurry up to ours.

Hurry as a Disordered Heart

Finally, Comer reveals that hurry isn’t just a scheduling problem—it’s a spiritual one. It springs from restlessness, insecurity, and the endless drive for approval. We’re running either away from pain or toward significance. Like modern Pharaohs, we enslave ourselves under the whip of performance. True freedom, therefore, comes not from doing more but from surrendering to the God who calls us to rest. To be unhurried is not laziness—it’s the mature admission that we are not God.

Comer’s turning point comes in re-reading Jesus’ invitation from Matthew 11: “Come to me… take my yoke upon you… for my yoke is easy.” A yoke, he explains, was a rabbi’s teaching—his way of interpreting the Torah and navigating life’s pressures. Every rabbi invited followers to take on his “yoke.” Jesus’ claim was revolutionary: his way of life—his habits and rhythms—would make life lighter, not heavier.

The Lifestyle Behind the Life

Most Christians, Comer argues, want the life of Jesus but not his lifestyle. We desire his peace but ignore his pace; we seek his joy but reject his discipline. But Jesus’ spiritual life flowed directly from his daily rhythms—his silence, simplicity, shared meals, rest, and unhurried relationships. To experience his life, Comer insists, we must practice his habits.

The Myth of Balance

Rejecting modern self-help narratives, Comer warns against chasing “work-life balance.” Jesus wasn’t balanced; he was centered—anchored in his Father’s love. He embraced limitations: physical tiredness, interruptions, even obscurity. In modern culture we worship limitlessness—always saying yes, always on. But Jesus models groundedness, choosing to do what truly matters and say no to the rest. As Comer puts it, “Every yes is a thousand nos.”

A Trellis for the Soul

Comer introduces the ancient idea of a rule of life—literally a “trellis” (from the Latin regula) that supports spiritual growth. Just as vines need structure to bear fruit, so our souls need intentional routines—habits of prayer, rest, and simplicity—to sustain health. Creating margin isn’t legalism; it’s gardening for the inner life. “Following Jesus has to make it onto your schedule,” Comer warns, “or it will never happen.”

Rather than seeing spiritual disciplines as dry rituals, Comer frames them as pathways to freedom—guardrails that keep us aligned with grace. They aren’t about earning God’s love but living from it. The goal of the easy yoke is not perfection but abiding: a relaxed, ongoing awareness of God’s presence through each moment.

In an age of noise and distraction, Comer begins where Jesus did—by retreating into silence and solitude. He calls this discipline “the portal to presence.” The Gospels repeatedly show Jesus slipping away from crowds to deserts, mountaintops, and gardens to be alone with his Father. These were not escapes from real life but moments of renewal so he could re-enter it grounded and whole.

Silence in a Noisy World

Modern technology, Comer notes, has all but annihilated boredom—and with it our capacity to listen. We fill every microsecond with podcasts, texts, and screens, drifting into what author Nicholas Carr calls “the shallows.” But silence—both external and internal—is essential for spiritual clarity. Saint Augustine described entering silence as “entering into joy.” In silence, the internal chatter—the anxiety, planning, and self-talk—finally quiets enough for us to hear God’s voice.

Solitude, Not Isolation

Solitude, Comer clarifies, is not loneliness but loving communion. He distinguishes between the two: isolation is escape, while solitude is engagement. It’s where we face reality—our pain, desires, and thoughts—in the safety of God’s presence. Henri Nouwen put it starkly: “Without solitude, it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.” Comer builds on this, urging readers to start small: a few minutes in the morning, a walk without headphones, an hour away from devices.

The Healing Power of the Quiet

In solitude, our inner restlessness surfaces—but so does healing. We discover we are loved apart from performance or noise. Over time, silence and solitude birth peace and attentiveness, reversing the numbness of our digital age. Comer’s own daily “quiet time” begins with nothing high-tech—just coffee, a Bible, and presence. He invites us back to this ancient rhythm: “Here’s to tomorrow morning, six o’clock. Coffee. The window. Time to breathe.”

Few practices challenge modern Western values like Sabbath. Comer calls it both a day of delight and an act of defiance. Drawing from Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, he reconstructs the ancient meaning of Sabbath as more than a day off—it’s a 24-hour revolution where we stop, rest, delight, and worship.

Resting Like God

God rested after creation, not because he was tired but to delight in what he made. Sabbath, then, mirrors divine rhythm. To resist rest is to go against the grain of the universe. Comer quips that when we do, “we get splinters.” Practicing Sabbath restores us to sanity by reminding us that we are creatures, not creators. It’s a weekly rehearsal that says, “I am not what I produce.”

Delight, Not Duty

Quoting Dan Allender, Comer calls Sabbath “an invitation to delight.” It’s not grim legalism but holy play—feasting, walking, laughing, and enjoying God’s world. Comer’s family keeps theirs from Friday evening to Saturday evening with candles, meals, and no phones. They feast, nap, laugh, and rest. Even science backs it: Seventh-day Adventists, who Sabbath weekly, statistically live about ten years longer than the average American.

Sabbath as Resistance

Rooted in the Exodus story, Sabbath is also rebellion against Pharaoh’s system of endless work. Israel was commanded not to reproduce Egypt’s economy of exploitation. Comer insists modern consumerism is just a digital Pharaoh. Sabbath becomes social justice in practice—shutting down production, refusing to buy, and declaring “I have enough.” It’s how we say no to hurry, greed, and the machine of more. Walter Brueggemann sums it up: “People who keep Sabbath live all seven days differently.”

Comer’s chapter on simplicity reads like a modern commentary on Jesus’ teaching that life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. He exposes consumerism as the false gospel of the West: the promise that more stuff equals more happiness. Drawing on history, he traces how advertising and postwar economics turned America from a culture of needs to a culture of desires. Now, he writes, “Amazon is the new temple; shopping is the new liturgy.”

The Deception of More

Materialism, Comer argues, speeds up our pace of life while choking our joy. Every purchase not only costs money but time—hours of labor, maintenance, and attention. Quoting Jesus and the apostle Paul, he shows that the danger of wealth lies not in money itself but in its seductive pull on the heart. After a certain point, more comfort no longer adds happiness; it dulls us. Real contentment, he suggests, begins when we learn to say “enough.”

Shifting from Consumer to Disciple

Simplicity isn’t about ascetic poverty but about alignment—arranging your possessions and habits around what matters most. Comer offers twelve practical principles, like buying fewer but better things, sharing resources, and recognizing advertising as propaganda. His own family lives by a budget and “blessing fund,” intentionally freeing money for generosity and justice. The goal: to become the kind of person for whom giving is more joyful than getting.

Freedom Through Less

In a world where identity is tied to consumption, minimalism becomes liberation. Comer paraphrases Saint Francis’s wisdom: “In everything, love simplicity.” The point isn’t to own nothing—but to own what allows you to live freely and love well. The fewer distractions you carry, the more room you make for meaning. The cost of simplicity, he concludes, is high—but the cost of complexity is higher still: your soul.

Comer ends with what he calls “slowing”—a modern adaptation of ancient patience. If Sabbath is a day of rest, slowing is a way of restfulness woven through every day. He turns ordinary moments of waiting—at stoplights, in line, in traffic—into training grounds for soul transformation. Borrowing inspiration from John Ortberg and Richard Foster, he calls slowing “a spiritual discipline for our era of hyperliving.”

Gamifying Patience

To counter hurry, Comer suggests playful “rules of life” such as driving the speed limit, choosing the longest line at the grocery store, or arriving early without your phone. These micro-practices train us to detox from the dopamine addiction of speed and stimulation. They seem trivial, but each moment of deliberate waiting becomes a small act of rebellion against the tyranny of efficiency.

Technology and Attention

Comer tackles the smartphone head-on, describing it as the new portal of distraction. He advocates turning it into a “dumbphone,” removing email, social media, and notifications. He and his wife even set bedtime for their devices. By parenting your phone, he says, you reclaim your soul. Don’t let algorithms set your emotional equilibrium—let Scripture and prayer do it instead.

The Way of the Tortoise

For Comer, slowing is about embodying the pace of love. He quotes the philosopher Byung-Chul Han: “Multitasking is regression.” True depth—intimacy with God, wisdom, friendship—can’t be rushed. Walking slower, talking slower, even chewing slower are ways of inhabiting the present. The goal is not efficiency but presence: to be fully alive to the moment where God is. As he closes, Comer prays, “Slow down. Breathe. Come back to the moment. Abide.”

In his epilogue, Comer confesses that even after years of untangling hurry, he often slips back into speed. Yet now he knows how to begin again. His new life in Portland—teaching fewer times, walking to work, spending unhurried evenings—isn’t glamorous, but it’s good. He calls it living from “a center of abiding.” The goal, he writes, is not a quieter schedule but a quieter soul.

Ambition Reimagined

Comer reflects on Paul’s advice to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.” Ambition and quiet seem opposite, but together they describe mature spirituality: energy directed toward peace. True success, he argues, isn’t influence or fame but freedom—the capacity to live lovingly in time. Practicing rest is a kind of holy rebellion against the world’s restless tempo.

Beginning Again

Even mature believers must keep returning to slowness. Comer compares hurry elimination to a lifelong war of attrition: we win by perseverance, not perfection. Each day, he repeats a simple liturgy: “Slow down. Breathe. Receive the good as gift. Accept the hard as pathway to peace.” Over time, this mantra reorients the heart toward peace and gratitude. The journey isn’t fast—but it’s worth it.

In the end, Comer’s vision is hopeful: a world may grow faster, but you can choose another way. You can live at the pace of love. The easy yoke still fits. The question he leaves hanging is one every reader must answer: “How will you live?”