This has become a very popular book and rightly so given its important topic. Life has become more rushed and frenetic, and a recovery of the spiritual disciplines will go a long way towards helping slow the pace. Given its content and its commercial success, it was a book I was keen to investigate. What would I actually find between the covers?

Prologue

Reading the Prologue was a strange experience. It has autobiographical elements designed to reassure us that the author has experienced the epidemic of hurry himself, and come through. So we can trust him on this.

This didn’t endear me to the book. Too much angst-laden detail. But I was glad to discover that Comer calls himself an ‘apprentice’ of Jesus, by which I could tell he knew what discipleship was all about. That did get me onside.

At the end of the Prologue, the author informs us, “This book isn’t long or hard to understand” (p13). Perhaps length isn’t just about the number of pages! I decided to suspend judgment on both counts until later.

So onward.

Into Part One: The Problem.

These three chapters are very engaging. We learn that ‘hurry’ is “the great enemy of spiritual life”. This makes a lot of sense. Then a ‘brief history of speed’ helps us realise that “something is deeply wrong”. Comer provides us with lots of well-researched information and asks the crucial question “What is all this distraction, addiction and pace of life doing to our souls?” (p43).

At the end of the section we are encouraged to read on:

Have you lost your soul?
Or at least part of it?
Want to get it back?
Keep reading (p.57).

So I did.

The opening to Part Two: The Solution, reminds us we have a problem. In a word, time. But the solution is “not more time” (p61). This is worth knowing and quite a relief given we can’t have more anyway. Last I checked, days, weeks, months are all fixed in length.

But good advice does follow. Firstly, realise you can’t do it all. Then the big reveal. What does any of this have to do with following Jesus? The secret of the easy yoke is threefold:

1. Be with Jesus.
2. Become like Jesus.
3. Do what he would do if he were you. (p.77)

Jesus was never in a hurry. Following him should become a rule of life. The section ends by asking “Are you ready to arrange (or rearrange) your days so that Jesus’ life becomes your new normal?” (p98).

The next chapter on ‘Sabbath’ is much better, well worth setting aside a day for.

Then comes. . . .

The intermission which is in a larger font, though this doesn’t make it more impressive. Just find the definition of a spiritual discipline on page 108, then skip on to. . .

Part Three: Four Practices for Unhurrying your Life.

‘Silence and Solitude’ has some useful tips but in rather too many words, tumbling, cascading, repeating, backtracking. The next chapter on ‘Sabbath’ is much better, well worth setting aside a day for.

The chapter on ‘Simplicity’ is all about wealth, money, consumerism, the drive to possess, and doing something about it. It could be that the author is regretting a misspent youth. But the great thing is there’s lots from Jesus in these pages, with a healthy reminder that even in the bits from him we don’t like, he was still right! Comer recognises that he’s very U.S-based in what he is saying here and apologises to those of us outside of America, while telling us to “just roll with it” anyway (p179). Which is fair enough. It’s not all that different here.

Comer provides one superb quote on simplicity from Joshua Becker. Basically it’s about promoting the things we most value while removing everything that distracts us from them. Once we’ve grasped that, there are twelve practical tips to get us started. Not a bad chapter overall.

Wish I could say the same for the final one, ‘Slowing’. A bit of a bore, really. The main chunk of the chapter contains “a few ideas to gamify driving into the spiritual discipline of slowing” (p223). You’ll have to look that up for yourself! It’s not a typo, I promise. The point is that when you’ve read through them all (assuming you do), at the end we find. . .

“These are just ideas. They might not be for you. That’s cool. Come up with your own list. But come up with a list. Then do it” (p244).

The epilogue was a real page-turner, in the bad sense. Six turns in sixty seconds.

Epilogue

The epilogue was a real page-turner, in the bad sense. Six turns in sixty seconds.

Overall the book is better than it might appear, so don’t pull out too soon. There are helpful notes at the end. The author does have real knowledge to share and is thoughtful in his approach.

To return to that suspended judgement. Is it long? Yes! Hard to understand? No! At least that way round is better.

If you like this review, you’ll love the book. Recommended anyway.

‘The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry’ (286pp) is published by Hodder & Stoughton, and is available from The Saint Bookstore