Your First Spiritual Habit

What is the number one spiritual habit or discipline? The one to rule them all?

Reading God’s word?

Prayer?

A good and reasonable and biblical case can be made for either. But John Mark Comer has a surprisingly different answer: silence and solitude (which he treats in tandem).

When I read that in Comer’s (2019) book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, I didn’t like it, but when I read on, I understood what he meant.

Comer means silence and solitude are not necessarily primary in and of themselves. He means they are primary as prerequisites. He argues that we have lost the ability to be still, and because of that, we have lost our ability to meditate on God’s word and to pray.

And so, very practically, he suggests we need to learn to be alone again, to be slow again, to be still and quiet again. Not because this state is magical in itself but because it creates the space for magical moments like encounters with God in his word and in prayer.

Do you agree with Comer’s argument?

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Comer, J. M. (2019). The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World. WaterBrook.