I’ve been reading up on business and distraction (most recently Celeste Headlee’s book Do Nothing) and for some reason, I didn’t think to read about how busyness related to Christianity; a glaring omission given that I try to live out Christianity the best I can. Somehow, though, I stumbled upon An Unhurried Life in the library’s ebook catalogue and I immediately borrowed it.

An Unhurried Life advocates that we slow down so that we can walk with God the way Jesus did. The book makes the following points:

• Walking with God means walking at His pace, not at our pace (and it cannot be rushed)
• If Jesus can take time out of his ministry to slow down and be in God’s presence, you can too
• Being unhurried doesn’t mean you’re being lazy and being hurried doesn’t mean you’re being productive (think of when Jesus told Martha that Mary sitting at his feet instead of rushing to serve him was the right choice)
• Slowing down has other benefits, such as being able to resist temptation, love people properly (being in a rushed frame of mind makes it easy to ignore the time-intensive demand of loving others), pray properly, help with our spiritual maturity, and prevent burnout.

Plus the usual about how we’re all hurrying too much and it’s not good for us, points that will not be new to you if you’ve read other books on busyness and the need to slow down.

Each chapter ends with a list of questions to consider, making this useful if you want to study it in a group – I think I might suggest this book to my cell group for this reason, as we re-examine the reason for our meetings and how we can encourage each other in our walk with God, not just our knowledge of God. The book ends with suggestions on how we can stop hurrying, including having extended personal communication with God and making sure we get enough sleep.

Personally, I resonated the most with the initial chapters on how hurrying and a mindset of busyness can interfere with our walk with God. I definitely feel as though I should be productive and busy all the time and it does make me want to rush through devotion time (even if the only things I’ve planned afterwards are some stretching exercise!). I thought this book was a great reminder that as I seek to slow down, the benefits should not only be in terms of mental health but also spiritual health.

That said, while I loved the initial chapters, I did feel like the later chapters were a bit of a stretch about the benefits on being unhurried (such as the ones on suffering and maturity). I ended up skimming through those, but I guess it’s possible this will resonate with me if I reread the book at a different stage in life.

Overall, I found this to be a practical and encouraging book that deepened my reflections about slowing down and the mindset of busyness/hustle culture. If you’re a Christian and you’ve been feeling burnt out, this would be one of the books that I recommend to you.