Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
Our seasons of life and their responsibilities—like going to college or raising a young child or caring for dying parents. In some seasons we just have very little extra time to give away. What a trellis is to a vine, a rule of life is to abiding. It’s a structure—in this case a schedule and a set of practices—to set up abiding as the central pursuit of your life. It’s a way to organize all of your life around the practice of the presence of God, to work and rest and play and eat and drink and hang out with your friends and run errands and catch up on the news, all out of a place of deep, loving enjoyment of the Father’s company. The amount of times someone has said, “I’m reading this book and it reminds me of you” or “I swear this book was written for you” is pretty humbling and very convicting. So not resign, more like demote myself. I want to lead one church at a time. Novel concept, right? My dream is to slow down, simplify my life around abiding. Walk to work. I want to reset the metrics for success, I say. I want to focus more on who I am becoming in apprenticeship to Jesus. Can I do that? When we first went to six, I called up this megachurch pastor in California who’d been doing six for a while.
I was surprised that in his section on “Spiritual Disciples,” he includes topics like “simplicity” and “sabbath” - and although he sets himself up so well with the “s” theme - he doesn’t include Scripture as a spiritual discipline?? It’s touched on here or there in the other categories but not given it’s own point.What if the day, what if time itself isn’t a scarce resource to seize but a gift to receive with grateful joy? “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.” 1 Thessalonians 4v11. We all have our own story of trying to stay sane in the day and age of iPhones and Wi-Fi and the twenty-four-hour news cycle and urbanization and ten-lane freeways with soul-crushing traffic and nonstop noise and a frenetic ninety-miles-per-hour life of go, go, go… If you’re not on board with Jesus’ view of money, it could be that you, like many Christians in the West (myself included until quite recently and with frequent relapses), don’t actually believe the gospel of the kingdom—the good news that the life you’ve always wanted is fully available to you right where you are through Jesus. Through him you have access to the Father’s loving presence. Nothing—not your income level or stage of life or health or relational status—nothing is standing between you and the “life that is truly life.”
But honestly: everything I have to offer you, I’m stealing from the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, my rabbi, and so much more. This book is super readable and I appreciated the structure of how it’s organized. JMC centers his book around the idea that Christians are called to be “apprentices” of Jesus, imitating his lifestyle not just obeying his explicit commands. He does a wonderful job revealing how an unhurried life of simplicity leads to abundance. I love and have been mulling over the CS Lewis quote he included near the end, which says, “the present is the point at which time touches eternity.” He also convinced me to try driving the speed limit 🙃 One of the key tasks of our apprenticeship to Jesus is living into both our potential and our limitations.That was the question nagging pastor and author John Mark Comer. Outwardly, he appeared successful. But inwardly, things weren't pretty. So he turned to a trusted mentor for guidance and heard these words: Reminder: Your phone doesn’t actually work for you. You pay for it, yes. But it works for a multibillion-dollar corporation in California, not for you. You’re not the customer; you’re the product. It’s your attention that’s for sale, along with your peace of mind.21” Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet.
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