1: “I live right on the edge of downtown Portland in this fun micro-urban neighborhood,” John Mark Comer writes in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.
Early in the morning, as John Mark sits and prays while enjoying his first cup of coffee, his neighbors are filing out the door to do a sunrise run.
It’s “a house full of single people who are essentially a walking advertisement for Nike,” he writes. “Nike is based in Portland’s suburbs, and I’m not sure if they work for the swoosh, or are sponsored, or what, but all six of them are avid runners.
“Now, I run, but I’m not a runner,” he notes. “These people are runners. . . Naturally, they are all wearing tights, and trust me, they look good. Single-digit body fat. That lean-but-muscular look. Impeccable posture: shoulders back, chin up.
“And then, they start to prance…I mean, run,” John Mark writes. “They look more antelope than human. Seriously, their warm-up is faster than my speed workout.”
As he sits on his couch watching them leave, he thinks to himself, “I want that. I want to look good in spandex. I want to run a six-minute mile without breaking a sweat. I want that level of health and energy and vitality.
“I want that life.”
What’s in the way? John Mark would have to change his lifestyle significantly to experience that level of fitness.
“While I was sipping my Kenyan single origin in my bathrobe,” he writes, “they were out sweating through the humid goop of summer and ice of winter.
“When I run, I catch up on a podcast or stare off into space thinking about my teaching for Sunday; they run intervals every four hundred meters and stretch their lungs to the breaking point.”
When John Mark does the cost-benefit analysis, it quickly becomes clear to him that the payoff is not worth the pain.
“The reality is, I want the life,” he observes, “but I’m not willing to adopt the lifestyle behind it.”
2: Which is how some of us feel about Jesus.
John Mark writes: “We read the stories of Jesus—his joy, his resolute peace through uncertainty, his unanxious presence, his relaxed manner and how in the moment he was—and think, I want that life.
“We hear his open invite to ‘life…to the full’ and think, Sign me up,” he reflects. “We get a vision of the kind of life that is possible in Jesus; we go to church or read a book or listen to a podcast; we catch a glimpse of the kind of life we ache for—one of emotional health and spiritual life.”
What gets in our way? We do not adopt Jesus’s lifestyle.
“Here’s a conviction of mine,” John Mark writes, “the Western church has lost sight of the fact that the way of Jesus is just that: A way of life.
“It’s not just a set of ideas (what we call theology) or a list of dos and don’ts (what we ethics),” be remarks. “I mean, it is that, but it’s so much more. It’s a way of life based on that of Jesus himself. A lifestyle.”
Looking back on the church he grew up in, John Mark reflects: It “made much of theology and ethics; but little to nothing was said about lifestyle. But lifestyle is where the money is.”
He quotes the Christian minister and author Eugene Peterson, who said: “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life…. But Jesus as the truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way. Jesus as the way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among the Christians with whom I have worked for fifty years as a North American pastor.”
John Mark writes: “Apparently, my church wasn’t the only one to deemphasize the way of Jesus as a lifestyle. What a tragic misstep.”
Because our lives are the result of our lifestyles, “the rhythms and routines that make up our day-to-day existence. The way we organize your time. Spend our money.”
“Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the ‘second mile,’ turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully—while living the rest of our lives just as everyone else around us does,” Dallas Willard writes. “It’s a strategy bound to fail. What he’s saying here is simple but profound.”
If we are unhappy with how we feel: “Anxiety at a simmer, mild depression, high levels of stress, chronic emotional burnout, little to no sense of the presence of God, an inability to focus our minds on the things that make for life, etc.,” John Mark observes, “then the odds are very good that something about the system that is our lives is off kilter.
“The way we’ve organized our morning (or evening) routines, our schedules, our budgets, our relationship to our phones; how we manage our resources of time, money, and attention, etc.—something is out of whack.”
The answer, John Mark believes, is not only to embrace the theology and ethics of Jesus, but also his way of life.
“Just follow his way. That’s it! Just take his life as a template for our own,” he writes. “Take on his habits and practices.”
3: Why do this? Because the benefits of doing so are immense.
Jesus speaks of his promise in the Gospel of Matthew: “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.”
“This is an invitation—for all the tired, the burned out, the stressed, and all those stuck in traffic and behind on their to-do lists, reaching for another cup of coffee just to make it through the day,” John Mark writes.
The yoke imagery, however, seems to contradict the idea of rest for our souls.
Aren’t yokes for farming? And farming is work, not rest. Right?
Don’t tired workers “need a mattress or a vacation”? Frederick Dale Bruner asks.
Actually, no.
“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,” Frederick writes. “Realism sees that life is a succession of burdens; we cannot get away from them; thus, instead of offering escape, Jesus offers equipment. . . , a ‘way’ of carrying life that will give more rest than the way we have been living.”
When we adopt Jesus’s lifestyle, as well as his theology and ethics, we get “to travel through life at his side,” John Mark explains, “learning from him how to shoulder the weight of life with ease. To step out of the burnout society to a life of soul rest.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Am I wishing for a happier, calmer life but ignoring the daily routines and choices that actually make it possible?
Action: Select one small habit—like intentional rest, mindful movement, or digital boundaries—to practice this week, noticing how it influences my sense of peace and fulfillment.
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