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

Comer presents the solution to the problem of hurry as one of responding to Jesus’s invitation to follow him and take up his “easy yoke.” The idea of following Jesus is a common thread in Christian spirituality, often addressed with terms like “discipleship” or simply as being a Christian. In the Bible, Jesus’s chosen followers are often referred to as his “disciples.” Comer, however, supports Dallas Willard’s alternate translation for the Hebrew word (talmidim) which lies behind the terminology of “disciples.” Comer suggests that it would carry more of the original sense of the word into modern English if we translated it as “apprentices,” a term that more exactly captures the role held by students and followers of Jewish rabbis in the first century CE. This distinction is important in Comer’s analysis, because it encapsulates a mild critique of the way the Christian gospel has often been presented in the West, as a set of theological doctrines one should believe. Comer argues that being a true follower of Jesus is not only a matter of believing the right things about him, but of living the same kind of lifestyle he did, observing and applying his philosophy of life to one’s own: “The whole point of apprenticeship is to model all of your life after Jesus” (77).

This idea is presented in the book as early as the Prologue, but finds its clearest articulation in Parts 2 and 3. Comer addresses this theme by observing and examining the way Jesus lived, as portrayed in the biblical gospels, and then drawing applications for how one might live by the same principles in modern society. As Comer puts it, “If you want to experience the life of Jesus, you have to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus” (82). This is not presented as an escape from the difficulty of life, a magical fix for the troubles of contemporary culture, but rather as the patient process of learning a new way of life which, although it still has a “yoke,” is nonetheless an easier weight to bear: “Jesus doesn’t offer us an escape. He offers us something far better: ‘equipment.’ He offers his apprentices a whole new way to bear the weight of our humanity: with ease” (88).

In studying the way Jesus lives in the gospel accounts, Comer draws applications for four main sets of practices to apply to one’s life: silence and solitude, Sabbath observance, simplicity, and habits of slowing down. These are all classic elements of the centuries-long traditions of Christian spiritual formation, and Comer notes that they are rooted in the pattern of life established by Jesus himself: “Jesus’ life rhythms, or the details of his lifestyle, have come to the called the ‘spiritual disciplines.’ […] I prefer to call them the ‘practices of Jesus’” (104-05). By taking these practices of Jesus and applying them to our lives, we can grow in the virtues of love, joy, and peace, as we learn to focus our attention on the abiding presence of God, with us in the present moment. Being an apprentice of Jesus, then, is a path of personal transformation that enables one to deepen one’s relationship with God and with others, to become the sort of person who inhabits each moment fully, without being distracted or pulled along to something else.