117 - Book | The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry
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Show Notes:
Welcome to the Nancy Ray Book Club, where every month I share a book worth reading and invite you to read it along with me. Today's book is The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer—highly recommending this one friend.
Listen, by now, you know I'm fascinated with the fast pace of our culture and the use of technology in our world and biblical principles for living. But this book was particularly helpful because it felt like it bridged the gap between modern living and the way that Jesus actually lived. It's one of those books that have kind of settled into my spirit and I think about it often. And I can't wait to share more about it with you today.
Hit play above to listen, or keep scrolling to read through it below.
Listen, when you read the back of a book and you're considering whether or not you should read it, and you wonder if the words that other people are saying about this book are true, or just kind of inflated. Here are a few phrases on the back of the ruthless elimination of hurry. "Desperately needed a remedy for our souls. Necessary. Freeing." I really, really agree with all of these words. They're not inflated. Now, before I dive into my three biggest takeaways from this one, I cannot help, but comment on the actual physical book because it was peculiar and different. And I loved it.
So first the cover this bright and bold orang-y red color. There's no cover jacket. It's just the book, which I personally love. And there are very few words. There's the title, the author. And on the back, it's literally just those three quotes and a quick writeup.
I mean, it's very, very simple. There's, it's big, chunky black font that I really love is just very simple and striking. Now, when you open the book up, the first thing you see are black pages to enter the book with white writing on it, then it's followed by white pages and a group of light gray pages. Then the middle of the book is black pages with white font, then light gray again, and then white. The black pages in the very middle of the book are titled "Intermission. Wait, what are the spiritual disciplines again?" And before those black pages is part one. And after those black pages is part two, then there's the way it's written page to page. It's not written like a typical book. There's actually a big space between every single paragraph.
It doesn't indent like a normal paragraph would, these paragraphs are just spaced apart. And I like it because John Mark Comer, the way he writes and the way that it reads, it feels like I'm in his brain. I liked, it felt like I was talking with a friend. So it just kind of broke the mold in a lot of ways, just with the way that it was presented and in the way that it was written. I really enjoyed that aspect of the book. Just the first time I picked it up, I was like, okay, this book is different. And I like it. So with that said really cool design, really neat. The way that the gradient of the pages changed and the way that it's written and the way it's spaced out. It's so simple, but I feel like it makes sense. So with that, let's move on to my three takeaways from The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, such a good book.
Takeaway #1
My first takeaway is how he talked about being an apprentice of Jesus. Like what does it mean to be an apprentice of Jesus? What does that look like? The way he used this wording challenged my faith in a deeply personal way.
It was beautiful. I should have looked this up. I've done this before on this podcast where I mispronounce a word, but there is a Hebrew word for disciple. It's me deem. And tell me deem usually is translated as the word disciple, but the better translation is apprentice. And what he says is to be one of Jesus's tell me deem is to apprentice under Jesus, put simply: it's to organize your life around three basic goals, be with Jesus, become like Jesus and do what he would do if he were you.
The whole point of apprenticeship is to model all your life after Jesus and in doing so to recover your soul, to have the warped part of you put back into shape, to experience healing and the deepest parts of your being to experience what Jesus called life to the full. Don't you love those words? And everywhere Jesus went, he would say, "Come follow me." And essentially that was an invitation to say, "Hey, come be my apprentice." Matthew 11:28 is a familiar verse to a lot of believers and it says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for, I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy. And my burden is light."
I love that. I feel like we could all read that 10 times and still not hear it enough, but I particularly love the message translation, which says, "And remember, this is Jesus speaking. Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on. You keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
I love that--unforced rhythms of grace freely and lightly. That's what being an apprentice of Jesus looks like. He has a lot of different examples in the book of how Jesus really took time with people, how he'd be on the way to one very urgent miracle. And then he would get interrupted by someone else who needed something and he would stop and meet the next need or the need of the person who's interrupting him.
And he wouldn't rush. He knew that if God wanted it to happen, it would happen. You never see him rushing. He also practiced the Sabbath every single week. He got away alone a lot, a lot. If you look at the ministry of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, He's with a crowd serving, and then He just goes off by himself, like all the time, He's practicing solitude and silence, just getting away with the father, and so the word tell me deem or apprentice of Jesus really just caught my heart. And that's really my first big takeaway from this book. It's not just about following Jesus or trying to apply the principles that he teaches to your life. It is being an apprentice of Jesus in all ways and his lifestyle and learning from him.
Takeaway #2
My second big takeaway from this book is realizing that my limitations are a gift. We are born with potential and we're born with limitations, but we hear a ton about fulfilling our potential and leaning into our potential and being all that we are made to be. But we don't pay enough attention to our limitations, which are also a gift. And so John Mark Comer says that we live in this culture where we're encouraged constantly to fulfill our potential and transcend our limitations to do all the things all the time.
Hey, we'll sleep when we're dead. Let's do it. Let's get after it. Let's listen to every single podcast. Let's watch every single Netflix show. Let's read every single book. Let's do all the things.
And then he takes his time and points out so many of our limitations. We are not God. We are people. We are bound by our bodies. We are bound by our minds. We can only know in part, we can't know everything. We're limited by our giftings, our personalities, our emotional wiring, our families of origin, our education, our seasons of life and their responsibilities, like going to college or raising a young child or several young children in my case, or caring for dying parents.
We're limited by the years of our life, we're limited by what God's assignment is for our life. And he says, what if these limitations, aren't something that I fight, but gratefully accept as a signpost to God's call on our souls? To embrace our limitations is really a beautiful thing. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Disney World—so fun!
And as we were preparing for this trip, I of course, was listening to all the soundtracks, all the Disney music and The Lion King is one of my favorites. I love the soundtrack to The Lion King and the Circle of Life came on. And the words in this song are so amazing. But the first stanza really is what caught my attention.
It says from the day we arrive on the planet and blinking step into the sun, there's more to see that can ever be seen more to do that can ever be done. And I just thought, you know, that is so true. We're never going to be able to see everything we want to see in this beautiful world. We're never going to be able to travel to all the places we're never going to be able to do all the things that we want to do.
We are limited. There's just not enough of us and not enough time. And that's okay. That's just the Circle of Life. That's how it is. And I think the sooner that we embrace the fact that there's more to see that can ever be seen more to do that can ever be done, and we can learn to be content with what we can see and what we can do.
We will be more fulfilled and less hurried as we go through our lives. One of my favorite lines in the whole book is: limitations aren't all bad. They are where we find God's will for our lives. That just hit me because oftentimes I just struggle and fight against my limitations and think I need to overcome them. I need to overcome the limited time I have, right? I need to overcome the limitations of this season of my life, but no, that is where we can find God's will for our lives. Our main limitation that we all share is time. We all wish we had more time, but it's a good thing. It's a good thing. It's a gift that God gave each of us 24 hours in a day.
So the goal is not for us to add more time to our lives and to break through this limitations. That really impossible, obviously, but instead to slow down and to simplify our lives around what really matters.
Takeaway #3
My third takeaway is the easy yoke; taking on the easy yoke of Jesus. And just how I talked about being an apprentice of Jesus and embracing Jesus, his way of life as a lifestyle of our own. That is what it looks like to take on the easy yoke. And Jesus says, you know, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. Join your yoke with mine. And it's an odd thing because if you don't know what a yoke is, it's like where these two oxen are locked together in their heads—like you should Google it because it's really interesting—but that's how they plow and work a field. And so it, back then, of course it was, everyone knew what a yoke was. Nowadays people are like, what's a yoke, but Jesus said, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. Like, come join with me, do work with me.
I will make your work a lot easier. And I love this paragraph in the book. He quotes Frederick Dale Bruner, who is a top scholar in the gospel of Matthew. And Friedrick says a yoke is a work instrument. Thus, when Jesus offers a yoke, he offers what we might think tired workers need least. They need a mattress or a vacation, not a yoke, but Jesus realizes that the most restful gift he can give the tired is a new way to carry life. A fresh way to bear responsibilities. Realism sees that life is a succession of burdens. We cannot get away from them. Thus, instead of offering escape, Jesus offers equipment. Jesus means that obedience to his Sermon on the Mount, his yoke will develop in us a balance. A way of carrying life that will give more rest than the way we have been living. I love this. He says, you see the genius of Jesus' invitation. There's an emotional and even spiritual weight to life. We all feel it, especially as we age, life is hard. It's not easy, but Jesus doesn't offer us an escape from life. He offers us an easy yoke, a way to go about doing life. That's easier where we can let him do the heavy lifting.
So I'm setting my heart towards becoming an apprentice of Jesus, to embracing my limitations, and to taking his easy yoke lifestyle as my own. Oh, I have a long ways to go. But man, I am thankful for books like this, just to recenter me back to the eternal things that I need to hear.
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. Of course, I'm going to be adding this book to the Cornerstore and you can head to Nancyray.com/cornerstore at any time. And it will take you directly to my Amazon affiliate store so you can see everything I've ever recommended here, the podcast or on Instagram.
I'm going to close with words from John Ortberg.
"For many of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living here's the slowing down and actually living life."
Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.
