Make your ambition to live a quiet life

Such a needed word for a hurried world. We live shallow lives, skimming on the top of the water. There is so much under the surface for us to see if we would slow down and sink our souls into God and others through the practices shared in this book.

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Much needed in this time of endless hurry

John Mark is an amazing communicator, and his approach to hurry in this day of constant distraction and busy-ness is a much needed reminder to slow down and prioritize the practices of building your spirit. I rarely listen to audio books twice, but this one will be one I come back to time and again.

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Ruthlessly Good

John Mark Comer's voice is KILLER. He is so easy to listen to and this book has so much goodness to it.
Such great insight, read at a great pace and awesome illustrations of what living a life without hurry looks like.

Highly recommend.

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Theoretically sound but choice of examples needs improvement

The main ideas and theologies in this book are all relatively well done. Where the first red flags appeared were from the overly liberal mention of alcohol as part of a person's lifestyle. While I am by no means against the occasional social drink, I do not think it is wise to associate a beer or a wine so strongly with the message of rest that he is trying to teach. I also feel there is a lot of fluff in the style of writing, in the sense that throughout the whole book, he is trying to be relatable by talking in too much detail about the pacific north western modern liberal lifestyle. Finally, around the last hour of the book, where he is talking about sabbath, I found myself feeling lost, as the tone of the book has almost morphed into a sort of motivational speech. What I longed for was theoretically sound and biblically backed truths and applications through and through. Overall the book gave me positive, and then mixed feelings, and can definitely be honed in and written more impactfully. However, if you are hopelessly stressed and don't know how to rest, this book can do wonders for you.

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Cautiously worth your time.

Reasons this is very worth listening to:
- Important considerations for what purpose hurry is serving in your life and what shifting this may also reveal
- Interesting reasoning and facts regarding where we are as culture with hurry and screen-focused.
- Offers multiple approaches to shifting our relationship with hurry (so long as you do not take his suggestions as rules to follow)
- Particularly enjoyed his inclusion of silence and solitude
- Relatively short, can re-listen later to get some of what you'll miss the first time through.
- Tone is enjoyable and overall the whole thing is very listen-able (basically listened to the whole thing in one day)


Criticisms:
- Still seems very much tied into the American Evangelical culture, to the point much of what is suggested still whiffs of "do this, do that" and some of the ways things are phrased sound like a 3-point sermon
- Fairly dismissive of people with different personality styles, asking people to fit into his preferred style; this is rather inflexible and limits the potential benefits readers/listeners could gain if they are not "rule-followers"
- Both these add up to a sense the author may be a bit young still and possibly has gotten sucked into the Evangelical book culture, this one being a "and my life fell apart so here is the method I used to pick up the pieces" style.
- Instead, could approach the areas he is talking about in a "what effect is this having on your physical/emotional/spiritual wellbeing?" so as to convey the option of a possibly better way of living without saying his way is the healthy way.
- Would be helpful to allow for more uncertainty and flexibility in eliminating hurry. Seems as though following what he says could easily lead you to lay down the yoke of hurry only to pick up the yoke of legalistic rule-following.

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4 people found this helpful

Hits the spot for age we live in!

I'm going through this book again for the third consecutive time. His approach and presentation of what it means to follow Jesus is super compelling. John Mark has communicated much of what we are starving for in our Western society.
I'm reading again to let these ideas of slowing down the pace of life and doing things more intentionally sink in more deeply.

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Thoughtful and helpful

An insightful examination on how reflecting Jesus' life in a practical and not only moral sense can positively transform life. The writing style is conversational and casual, which some may not like, but it is very easy to follow.

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So dang good

This is the most relevant Christian book I’ve read in a long long time. A word that our present generation needs to hear more badly then they know. Also John does a great job reading his book. I feel like if anyone besides the author read it they couldn’t convey quite the the meaning. After all language is more then words.

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Life changing

This book absolutely changed my life with context and truth that I didn’t even know I was missing.
If you’re looking for an evidence based book to kickoff a slower and whole life, this is the one.

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Not a Self Help

There was nothing really that I dislike, I quite enjoyed the way the book was read it didn’t feel robotic.

John Comer’s made me reevaluate my day to day life. Some of the things said in the book is challenging in a good way. As my pastor once said we constantly feed our wants and desires and we often starve our spirit. This book was a wake up call to be conscience on how we spend our time.

This book is for everyone who lives in a world of conveniences but feels discontent with their lives.

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