The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World

by John Mark Comer

The whole point of apprenticeship is to model all of 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 in the deepest parts of your being. To experience what Jesus called “life…to the full.”1 What the New Testament writers call “salvation.”2 Keep in mind, the Greek word that we translate “salvation” is soteria; it’s the same word we translate “healing.” When you’re reading the New Testament and you read that somebody was “healed” by Jesus and then you read somebody else was “saved” by Jesus, you’re reading the same Greek word. Salvation is healing. Even the etymology of our English word salvation comes from the Latin salve. As in, an ointment you put on a burn or a wound. This is what Jesus was all about—healing people, saving them, at a soul-deep level. How? Through apprenticeship to him.

Here’s a conviction of mine: 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 call ethics). 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.

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. I hope you’re laughing right now; that’s so insightful and true. 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 and a “way” of carrying life that will give more rest than the way we have been living.

Can you imagine what would happen to our society if all commerce stopped once a week? If 24-7 stores went 24-6? Websites stopped receiving orders. Amazon warehouses closed for a day. Restaurants powered off the oven. Can you imagine what that would do for the poor in our cities? Creating space for them to rest and spend time with loved ones?