Michael Zigarelli from the Charleston Southern University School of Business conducted the Obstacles to Growth Survey of over twenty thousand Christians across the globe and identified busyness as a major distraction from spiritual life. When the habits of Jesus are cultivated as rhythms and routines in a person’s daily life, together, they create a “rule of life. Today, you’re far more likely to run into the enemy in the form of an alert on your phone while you’re reading your Bible or a multiday Netflix binge or a full-on dopamine addiction to Instagram or a Saturday morning at the office or another soccer game on a Sunday or commitment after commitment after commitment in a life of speed.

Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Comer implores us to make space for God--literally and figuratively--by slowing down, spending time with God, and creating space on our shelves and in our brains by rejecting the messaging, clutter, and harried pace that comes with the endless accumulation of “more. This book really might change my life and I’m excited to lean into the way of life it presents, the unhurried lifestyle of Jesus Christ.Take all social media off your phone, transfer it to a desktop, and schedule set times to check it each day or, ideally, each week. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. In the third and final section of his book, Comer describes four specific practices from the life of Jesus. Comer's book is a quick and easy read, but it's packed full of great stories, quotes, Scripture references, and jokes. He’s an expert at accessibility, and creating open paths for onboarding into the difficult (but rewarding) work of cultivating a rich inner life is needed more than ever.

An insurgency and insurrection against the “isms” of the Western world—globalism, capitalism, materialism, all of which sound nice but quickly make slaves of the rich and the poor.This book was like how to practice the presence of God (bro lawernce’s deal) but in the 21st century. All the while presented in Comer's trademark conversational, enjoyable tone that makes it a great and easy read. Most likely I’d say it’s modernity or postmodernity or liberal theology or the popularization of the prosperity gospel or the redefinition of sexuality and marriage or the erasure of gender or internet porn or the millions of questions people have about violence in the Old Testament or the fall of celebrity pastors or Donald Trump. Pretty much everyone I know would do well to read this book and put it into practice - I'm going to have to re-read it with an eye towards my own proclivities for hurry before too long. In the cruciform kingdom, only the bad things die: image and status and bragging rights, all vanity.

But the true power to change, to be revolutionary, lies not with a list of tips on how to manage a pace change, but in the power of Christ while nestled in the good news of the Gospel. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who thinks they might be rushing through their life in the pursuit of happiness, and might, just might be on the wrong track. What, if anything, seems to be contributing most to any sense of soul hurry within you in this season? If you are anything like me, achievement-focused-yes-man-who-wants-to-single-handedly-save-the-world-but-realises-you-can’t-do-it-without-God-and-have-to-pray-for-forgiveness-of-pride, then you might know what I’m talking about. Some reviewers have complained that the book is too quote-heavy, but I didn't mind, they were good quotes.He describes a time in his own life when he was overwhelmed by busyness, overscheduled and overcommitted as pastor of a multisite megachurch. They aren’t just pleasant feelings; they are the kinds of people we become through our apprenticeship to Jesus, who embodies all three ad infinitum. The amount of times someone has said, “I’m reading this book and it reminds me of you” or “I swear this book was written for you” is pretty humbling and very convicting.

We ignore our need for rest at our own peril, since emotional, physical and mental health suffer when we push ourselves too hard for too long. Maybe I’ll feel my mind settle like untouched water; maybe my mind will ricochet from thought to thought, and never come to rest. All in all, Comer does a really good job diagnosing the problem with our culture - mainly, the fact that Americans are obsessed with "hurry," and it's a real problem. One of the key tasks of our apprenticeship to Jesus is living into both our potential and our limitations. For one (and I say this as a Christian), it does irk me when books that clearly have a spiritual bent are not marketed as such.Although deliberately getting in a longer queue hurts every fibre of my body, I understand his point that we can slow down in the simplest ways. The problem isn’t when you have a lot to do; it’s when you have too much to do and the only way to keep the quota up is to hurry. If the alliteration reminds you of many sermon strategies, well, JMC is a pastor and this should not be surprising. The title comes from a quote by Dallas Willard, who was a philosopher at the University of Southern California and author of many books about the spiritual life; Willard once advised, “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.