The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world

In the Prologue, John Mark Comer opens his analysis of the pace of modern life through sharing personal recollections. He describes his experience as a multi-site megachurch pastor in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, in which he was preaching at multiple services and attending meetings throughout the week. The relentless pace of this schedule, even though it matched the conventional picture of career success in American life, left him feeling empty and exhausted. He began to reconsider the path of his life: “I don’t actually want to be the CEO/executive director of a nonprofit/HR expert/strategy guru/leader of leaders, etc. Is this the way of Jesus?” (3).

After several months of reflection, Comer decided to resign his position and to take a much smaller role as a single-church pastor in downtown Portland. He describes the effect this change has on his soul: “A life of speed isn’t easy to walk away from. But in time, I detox. Feel my soul open up […] Change is slow, gradual, and intermittent” (8). Eventually, he is able to come to a place where he can more readily feel the presence of God in his life.

Convinced that his experience of exhaustion at the hectic pace of life is not atypical, Comer then moves from his own recollections to a brief reflection on life in 21st-century America. He invites his readers to consider whether their pace of life is too hectic, whether they are able to find restfulness and peace in the course of their daily schedules, with the assumption that most people in contemporary society will have to say “no.” The answer, Comer suggests, is to consider again the invitation of Jesus, who asks his hearers to come to him to find rest for their souls and to take up the “easy yoke” of following him. This invitation—a quotation from a Bible passage, Matthew 11:28-30—forms the core biblical exposition of Comer’s book. The solution to the exhaustion of our overwork, he suggests, is to heed the call of Jesus and take up his “easy yoke” by becoming an apprentice of his lifestyle.

Comer addresses two of his book’s main themes in the Prologue: The Dangers of a Hurried Lifestyle and Apprenticeship to Jesus. The dangers of a hurried lifestyle are evident in Comer’s self-evaluation of his life as a multi-site megachurch pastor. He shares stories of stress, burnout, and fatigue, along with the sense of missing one’s purpose that so often accompanies these symptoms. Most troubling for him, however, was his loss of a sense of God’s presence—his ability to “feel God.” Comer expects that most readers will have their own experiences that match much of what he is describing, and he invites readers to consider their current lives regarding the effects of hurry. Although contemporary American culture favors a hurried pace as a way to get more done, Comer contends that we end up losing those parts of life which are the most important. While our frenetic multitasking might get more done, we also become less able to find the soulful peace we seek in life, and become shallower in our characters and emptier of contentment as a result.

The second major theme, Apprenticeship to Jesus, is introduced near the end of the Prologue. Comer presents the answer to the self-defeating cycle of hurriedness as a simple task of coming to Jesus in response to his invitation of the “easy yoke.” While he does not yet stress his distinctive terminology of “apprenticeship,” the groundwork is being laid for his vision of the Christian life as one which not only believes the teachings of Jesus, but which emulates his lifestyle.