Book Club Questions for The ruthless elimination of hurry

1.Comer opens with a raw confession: he had built a large, "successful" church in Portland and found himself emotionally numb, irritable, and hollow. Have you ever experienced a season where outward success and inward emptiness existed side by side? What did that feel like?

2.He quotes his mentor and spiritual director who gave him a simple diagnosis: "The solution to your problem is to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life." Why do you think that word *ruthless* was chosen? What would it take to be ruthless about something in your schedule?

3.Comer describes hurry as a "modern problem" deeply tied to technology, capitalism, and the cult of productivity. Do you agree that hurry is a uniquely modern crisis, or do you think it has always been a human struggle? What evidence would you point to?

1.Comer defines hurry sickness as "a continuous struggle and unrelenting attempt to accomplish or achieve more things or participate in more events in less time." Does that definition describe you, even partially? Be honest — what would people who live with you say?

2.He offers a blunt list of symptoms of hurry sickness — irritability, superficiality, isolation, joylessness, and a neglect of spiritual practices. Which of these symptoms, if any, do you recognize in your own life right now?

3.Comer quotes the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, who coined the term "hurry sickness" in the 1940s, and later the physician Meyer Friedman. Why do you think a problem identified nearly a century ago has gotten *worse* rather than better? What forces have accelerated it?

1.Comer walks through Mark 1 — often called a "day in the life" of Jesus — and notes that Jesus heals, teaches, and prays without apparent stress or rushing. What details of that passage surprised you most when you read it with unhurriedness in mind?

2.One of the chapter's most striking observations is that Jesus routinely walked away from crowds of people who needed him in order to be alone with his Father. How does that make you feel? Does it challenge your assumptions about what faithfulness looks like?

3.Comer points to the story of Lazarus (John 11) — where Jesus deliberately delays going to his sick friend — as one of the clearest examples of Jesus' unhurriedness. When Jesus finally arrives and Lazarus has died, the family is grieving. What was Jesus' reason for the delay, and what does it reveal about how he understood time and urgency?

1.Comer describes the goal as not merely slowing down, but cultivating a "with-God life" — an ongoing, moment-by-moment experience of the presence of God. How would you describe your current experience of God's presence in daily life? Consistent? Occasional? Mostly absent?

2.He draws on Dallas Willard's vision of the Kingdom of God as a present reality available to us now, not just a future hope. How does that understanding change the urgency of the practices Comer is recommending? Does it change how you think about the spiritual life?

3.Jesus' invitation in Matthew 11:28–30 — "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened" — is placed at the center of this chapter. Comer reads "my yoke is easy and my burden is light" not as a promise that life will be painless, but that life with Jesus has a fundamentally different quality. What is the distinction? Do you experience Christianity as "easy" in that sense?

1.Comer introduces the ancient concept of a "rule of life" — a phrase from monastic tradition describing a set of rhythms, practices, and commitments that shape the pattern of one's days. Had you encountered this idea before? What is your instinctive reaction to the word "rule" in a spiritual context?

2.He argues that everyone already has a rule of life — most of us just let culture, our employers, and our devices write it for us. What is the "rule of life" that currently governs your days, whether or not you chose it intentionally?

3.Comer describes his own personal rule of life and the long process of developing it with his wife. What strikes you about his approach? What would it feel like to sit down and actually design the rhythms of your week from scratch?

1.Comer admits he resisted Sabbath for years, associating it with legalism and irrelevance. What is your current practice of Sabbath, if any? And what has shaped your view of it — positively or negatively?

2.He roots Sabbath not in the Mosaic law but in creation itself (Genesis 2:1–3) — God rested on the seventh day as a model for human flourishing. What does it mean that rest is built into the fabric of creation, not added later as a concession to weakness?

3.Comer describes Sabbath with four verbs: *stop*, *rest*, *delight*, and *worship*. Which of those four comes most naturally to you? Which feels most foreign or difficult? Why?

1.Comer defines simplicity not as minimalism for aesthetics, but as the intentional clearing away of anything that keeps you from loving God and neighbor with your whole self. How is that definition broader — or more challenging — than you expected?

2.He argues that the complexity of modern life is not just a logistical problem but a spiritual one — each commitment, possession, and option we add is a demand on our attention and energy. What areas of your life feel most cluttered right now: your schedule, your digital life, your finances, your possessions?

3.Comer points to Jesus' teaching on money and anxiety in Matthew 6 — "You cannot serve both God and money" — and connects it directly to simplicity. Why is the accumulation of wealth and stuff so spiritually dangerous, in Jesus' view? Do you find that warning credible in your own experience?

1.Comer opens this chapter by noting that slowing is less a grand spiritual discipline and more a series of small, habitual choices that rewire the nervous system and the soul over time. What is your initial reaction to that — does "small and ordinary" feel underwhelming or actually accessible?

2.He offers a famous list of practical suggestions for slowing: driving in the slow lane, choosing the longest checkout line, eating slowly, putting your phone away, arriving early. Have you tried any of these? What happened internally when you did?

3.Comer explains that slowing is not about being lazy or inefficient — it is about being present. What is the difference between slow and present on one hand, and slow and checked-out on the other? How do you tell them apart in your own experience?

1.Comer describes silence and solitude as one combined practice — you cannot really have one without the other. How does that pair differ from simply being alone, or from introverted recovery time? What is the specifically spiritual dimension of it?

2.He quotes multiple studies showing that people would rather give themselves electric shocks than sit alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes. Does that statistic surprise you? What does it reveal about our relationship to our own interior life?

3.Comer walks through the frequency with which the Gospels show Jesus withdrawing to lonely places to pray — often before and after major events. What does it mean that Jesus, the Son of God, apparently needed this practice? What does that imply for us?

1.Comer observes that in Genesis 1, each day of creation begins with evening — "there was evening and there was morning." He reads this as a theological statement: rest precedes work; we begin our day not by striving but by receiving. How does that inversion of the typical "get up and grind" morning mentality strike you?

2.He argues that our evening routines either prepare us for genuine rest and receptivity or they accelerate the anxious momentum of the day right up to the moment we close our eyes. What does your typical evening actually look like? Be honest.

3.Comer discusses the impact of screens in the evening — specifically, the way that news, social media, and streaming consume the hours when the soul most needs stillness and transition. Have you ever experimented with a screen-free evening? What did you notice?

1.Comer describes his own morning routine in some detail — waking before the household, making coffee, sitting in silence, reading Scripture, praying — and acknowledges it took years to develop and protect. What is your current morning routine? Does it feel designed or default?

2.He argues that the first twenty minutes of the morning disproportionately shape the emotional and spiritual texture of the entire day. Do you believe that is true from your own experience? What evidence would you point to?

3.Comer is direct about phone use in the morning — checking it immediately floods the mind with other people's agendas, news, and demands before we have had a chance to orient ourselves to God and our own priorities. How early do you typically check your phone in the morning? What would it cost you to delay that by thirty or sixty minutes?

1.Comer ends where he began — with the invitation of Jesus in Matthew 11: "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." After reading the whole book, does that invitation feel more real and accessible to you than when you started? Why or why not?

2.He is honest in the conclusion that he is still a work in progress — that the unhurried life is not a destination he has arrived at but a direction he is moving in. How does that admission affect your posture toward the practices in this book? Does it relieve pressure or disappoint you?

3.Comer frames the entire project as one of apprenticeship to Jesus — learning his way of life, not just his set of beliefs. Looking back over the book, how has your understanding of what it means to "follow Jesus" changed or deepened?

1.Looking back over the entire book, which chapter or idea landed with the most force for you personally? What was it about that moment that broke through?

2.Comer's central argument is that hurry is a spiritual disease, that Jesus is the cure, and that ancient practices are the medicine. Do you now accept that diagnosis for your own life? How has your understanding of your own relationship to hurry changed since you began?

3.Of the four practices — Sabbath, simplicity, slowing, and silence/solitude — which one have you already begun experimenting with? What have you discovered? Which one still feels most out of reach?