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

Comer opens Chapter 1 by recounting a conversation between two mentor figures in his life, John Ortberg and Dallas Willard (See: Key Figures). Ortberg asks Willard, “What do I need to do to become the me I want to be?,” to which Willard replies, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life” (18-19). This quote, the inspiration for the book’s title, leads Comer to an examination of the social and spiritual issues which the problem of hurry causes in contemporary society. He insightfully notes that most people, when asked how they are doing, will reply that they are doing well, but are busy.

Busyness has become such an inextricable part of modern life that many people don’t even notice how much of a hold it has on their lives. This is true across most subsets of Western populations, including Christians (and especially, Comer notes, among pastors). However, there is a troubling problem there, because most of the highest values which Christians hold to—love, joy, peace, and so on—are all virtues which require deep attention to the present moment; they can’t be rushed. So if busyness and haste are among the defining attributes of our culture, then it is a culture that will likely fail to produce the love, joy, and peace that are meant to be hallmarks of the Christian way of living: “The message is clear [in our culture]: slow is bad, fast is good. But in the upside-down kingdom, our value system is turned on its head: hurry is of the devil, slow is of Jesus, because Jesus is what love looks like in flesh and blood. The same is true for joy and peace” (24). While some busyness is unavoidable in modern life, Comer insists that the way that the spirit of busyness has pervaded everything in our lives is a sign of its toxic effects. If busyness gives way to the disease of hurry, in which we are perpetually pulled to give our attention to the next task, the next new thing ahead of us, then we will find ourselves unable to live out the deepest principles of the kingdom of God.

Chapter 1 brings the first major theme straight into the spotlight: The Dangers of a Hurried Lifestyle. The first danger Comer points out is that hurry will make us unable to live in accordance with our own deepest values. Most of the things we say we prioritize in life—relationships, family, faith, and so on—are things that take significant time and deep attention, but a mindset of perpetual hurry leaves no room for such things. As such, life becomes an endless and exhausting parade of merely trivial things: the passing tasks which seem important in the moment but which fade to insignificance in retrospect. This chapter also provides the first appearance of another theme, that of The Importance of Living in the Present Moment. Comer lists the virtues of love, joy, and peace as necessary aspects of a life with God, but ones which only grow and bear fruit if we can slow down, stop living in the future, and give them the attention they deserve: “If there’s a secret to happiness, it’s simple—presence to the moment. The more present we are to the now, the more joy we tap into” (24).