Hear that giant door slamming shut? Pay it no mind, it's just a season of my life (a third of my life, but who's counting?) closing shop. Tomorrow my youngest child finishes elementary school. The school down the street. The one we bought a house next to because we practically lived there. The one where we've deeply, intensely invested the past 14 years of our lives. The place our kids entered as nervous, needy 5-year-olds and emerged as confident, independent adolescents.
We're ready to go. Junior high beckons my girl, and she's eager to move on. She has new friends to make and new interests to discover. I'm ready, too. I am done with art shows, spelling tests, living museums, costume days, field day, and freezing cold trips in May to the Botanical Gardens. I don't need to make another trip to the Capitol with 80 rowdy 4th graders or eat a sack lunch on a cold, hard floor. I don't need to bring in another pack of juice boxes or attempt to grade another logic packet. I definitely don't need to spend another minute in the elementary carpool. I'm truly grateful for every blessed day I got to do those things and that I got to do them times four, but I can be done. I need to be done. The elementary moms with their baby slings and tattoos remind me that it is time for a new generation to take its place. (It already has, actually, I've just lingered far longer than the other Gen X moms.) But still, it won't be an easy goodbye for historical me. I can't say goodbye to a pair of socks without a whole lot of processing and reflection.
Tomorrow the other kids, grades K-5, will line the hallways outside their classrooms. Someone will cue the tears, and Chariots of Fire will be blasted over the loud speaker. The sixth graders will enter at the kindergarten wing and run through the halls, high-fiving the younger ones who will take their place. Their former teachers will cheer them on, and as they make their way to the sixth grade hall, a clump of weepy parents will try to forget about themselves and instead clap wildly for the achievement of their children. Oh, it won't be easy. Ugly crying is my best possible outcome. Worst case scenario involves the MERT team and an ambulance. It is Chariots of Fire, after all.
But good is rarely easy. And this is good. This is "How-blessed-was-I-to-get-to-do-this-for-14-years-of-my-life?" good. The very, very best kind of good.
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Sunday, May 12, 2019
On Mother's Day
Twenty years ago on Mother's Day, I was just beginning to fill out my maternity clothes. Strangers were asking with more confidence, "When is your baby due?" I was signing up for Lamaze and baby CPR classes, practicing different boy and girl names in my head, and making tentative peeks down the baby aisle at Target to see what in the world I was getting into. I didn't know it then, of course, but what I was getting into was the greatest experience of my life. I would not have said that six weeks in, or even six months in. I wasn't thinking that during all those Mother's Days photo ops when you could bet money that one of my kids would be kicking and wailing. But this morning, walking around my prayer track, I could think of nothing else: Getting to be part of this family and being a mom to these four kids has been the joy of my life. As I thanked God this morning, some thoughts came to mind:
- There was a toilet paper commercial in the 80s that sang out, "Because little things mean a lot." This is my anthem as a mom of nearly-grown children. I'm not looking for grand vacations or life-altering family conversations. I'll happily take the six of us simply inhabiting the same space. Last weekend, Kevin and I went to church by ourselves. This Sunday, four kids sat with us. That means a lot. Riding in a car with every seat full means a lot. Asking for a table for six at a restaurant means a lot. Overhearing my kids all laughing together means a lot.
- I no longer want peace and quiet for Mother's Day. I want loud and rambunctious and all in.
- I'm so glad I couldn't really freeze time when my children were 4, 7, 9, and 11. I thought those were the perfect ages, that our life couldn't get any better. I was a little scared of the thought of teenagers. But I can say now that 12, 15, 17, and 19 is as good as it's ever been. Younger moms, please don't dread the passing of time and the aging of your kids. It keeps getting better!
- As a mom, I live with constant tension between the short term and the long term, between what is best for my kids and what my heart wants. I could write a book or preach a sermon on raising independent kids who have the space to learn from failure, but I always have to fight my natural urge to rescue them. Two days ago one of my high schoolers got herself into a big pickle. I spent the entire day forcing myself not to help her. It nearly killed me, until she walked in the door at 8 p.m. and said, "That all turned out really well." It turned out well because of her, not because of me.
- Bulldozing my firstborn child out of the nest and sending him 1,500 miles away to college was more gut-wrenching than I could have imagined. But hearing him say, in one of our prolific emails to each other, that "this is why it's probably good to go far away to college," made it worth all the heartache.
- I suspect that the hardest part of my mothering experience is yet to come, the part where I have to grow beyond my identity as "mom" to become the full "me" God created me to be. That growth, I imagine, will come in a very quiet house. I have to talk myself into believing that that stage, too, will be every bit as good as the parts that came before.
Happy Mother's Day to all of you, mother or not, who have loved others tirelessly and selflessly. You're better for it, and so is the world around you.
Saturday, April 13, 2019
The Week Before Easter
Easter is coming. It's late this year, but it's finally on its way. It feels like we've been waiting a long time.
I need Easter, especially in the spring. I'm running on fumes in the spring, depleted by my own commitments and self-focus. The days come fast and furious, one event after another after another, the calendar an unrelenting taskmaster. Rest and reflection are elusive. I have to fight for them. Holy, transcendent thoughts are suppressed by those that seem more urgent: I must figure out this new computer. Who will drive to the track meet Saturday? Do we have enough bread for sandwiches? Can she possibly get a good enough scholarship to afford that college she dreams of?
But Easter's coming, and I want to be ready for it. I force my thoughts in a different direction. I wake up each day to a devotional full of scripture, art, music, poetry, and meaningful reflections that lift my thoughts upward. (It's from Biola University's Center for Christianity, Culture and the Arts, and it's worth checking out.) As it's still winter in Colorado, I bundle up and walk circles around my track, trying to do the nearly impossible work of shutting out the calendar's demands to focus my mind on Christ and Christ alone.
I am transfixed by something I read a few days ago. Anglican pastor and famed writer John Stott told of visiting a temple in Asia and encountering a "placid, remote-looking Buddha statue." We've all seen them and instantly recognize the fat belly, the closed eyes, and the slightly smug expression. Stott's mind immediately turned instead "to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. This is the God for me!" This is the God of Easter.
My girls and I recently saw The Thorn in Denver. Although it was my fourth time, every show is a little different, and this one had an addition that caught me by surprise. As the man playing Jesus hung on the cross, the stage was completely silent. No one moved or spoke. And for one long minute, all we heard was painful, terrible gasping from the man on the cross. His whole body shook as the guttural, horrific sounds escaped from his chest. It was almost unbearable, even as I knew this man would get down and celebrate at a cast party an hour later.
This is the God for me. The one who knows what it's like to be human, who knows rejection, suffering, and death. The one who understands my distracted, undisciplined thinking, my forgetfulness and faithlessness, my continual temptation toward sin, and loves me anyway. Help me lean in, Jesus, to those unforced rhythms of grace (Matt. 11:29-30, MSG) that run so contrary to my world and my cluttery mind.
I'm ready for Easter.
I need Easter, especially in the spring. I'm running on fumes in the spring, depleted by my own commitments and self-focus. The days come fast and furious, one event after another after another, the calendar an unrelenting taskmaster. Rest and reflection are elusive. I have to fight for them. Holy, transcendent thoughts are suppressed by those that seem more urgent: I must figure out this new computer. Who will drive to the track meet Saturday? Do we have enough bread for sandwiches? Can she possibly get a good enough scholarship to afford that college she dreams of?
But Easter's coming, and I want to be ready for it. I force my thoughts in a different direction. I wake up each day to a devotional full of scripture, art, music, poetry, and meaningful reflections that lift my thoughts upward. (It's from Biola University's Center for Christianity, Culture and the Arts, and it's worth checking out.) As it's still winter in Colorado, I bundle up and walk circles around my track, trying to do the nearly impossible work of shutting out the calendar's demands to focus my mind on Christ and Christ alone.
I am transfixed by something I read a few days ago. Anglican pastor and famed writer John Stott told of visiting a temple in Asia and encountering a "placid, remote-looking Buddha statue." We've all seen them and instantly recognize the fat belly, the closed eyes, and the slightly smug expression. Stott's mind immediately turned instead "to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. This is the God for me!" This is the God of Easter.
My girls and I recently saw The Thorn in Denver. Although it was my fourth time, every show is a little different, and this one had an addition that caught me by surprise. As the man playing Jesus hung on the cross, the stage was completely silent. No one moved or spoke. And for one long minute, all we heard was painful, terrible gasping from the man on the cross. His whole body shook as the guttural, horrific sounds escaped from his chest. It was almost unbearable, even as I knew this man would get down and celebrate at a cast party an hour later.
This is the God for me. The one who knows what it's like to be human, who knows rejection, suffering, and death. The one who understands my distracted, undisciplined thinking, my forgetfulness and faithlessness, my continual temptation toward sin, and loves me anyway. Help me lean in, Jesus, to those unforced rhythms of grace (Matt. 11:29-30, MSG) that run so contrary to my world and my cluttery mind.
I'm ready for Easter.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
My "Why?" Box
A few days in to the new year, a friend of mine was in a bad car accident. It was not her fault, and the other driver fled the scene and has yet to be found. While her injuries were mercifully minimal, the toll on my friend's life has been anything but.
For months and months, I had been working with this single, young friend to help her move beyond a stuck place in her life. She was beginning to take some baby steps toward becoming unstuck. I had new hope for her. She had new vision for herself. God had heard our cries, and things were looking up. Then she went out to pick up burgers one night, a mile from her house, and her progress was hijacked by a guy who ran a red light.
It wouldn't be enough to say we were back at square one. We were at negative ten. This is where, for the purposes of this blog, the story stops being about her and starts being about me and God.
I am not new to this faith thing. I committed my life to Christ at the age of 10 and got really serious about Him at 23. I have years, decades, of experience walking in faith. I have seen Him meet needs time and time again. My roots are deep, and I've lived a lot of years feeling mostly unshakable.
But this senseless car accident, so devastating to someone I'm heavily invested in, dealt a blow to my faith. As I made hundreds of circles around my backyard prayer track crying out to God, I latched on to just one word and held on with all my might: Why? Why, God, would you allow this to happen? Why would you allow my friend's progress and hope to be stolen? Why did it have to be her car? Why did it have to be so bad? Why would you leave her traumatized, carless, and unable to work? Why, why, why?
Yes, I could be grateful that she came out alive. That her injuries weren't worse. I thanked Him for those things, but only when my obsession with "why" allowed me a quick breather. Then the questions came right back.
I'm not much of a visual person, but it seems that the more time I spend with God, the more He gives me pictures to make His points. He began putting a picture in my mind of a big, heavy box labeled "WHY?" And then He asked me (in that way in which God speaks to us without literally speaking while still letting us know it's definitely Him) if I would be willing to put that box on a shelf. He wasn't asking me to destroy it, just to set it aside.
Now if by some strange turn of events I allowed you a peek at my closet, after first gasping in horror you would then see that there is no room on a shelf for even a small box, let alone a big one. But in His graciousness, God's picture to me included a nice, clean, open shelf, ready and waiting to receive my large box.
Was I willing to set aside my need for understanding? To trust that He is always working for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes, whether we can see that happening or not? Was I willing to move past "Why?" and receive whatever He had for me on the other side of my letting go?
My fingers were clenched. It wasn't an easy release. It also wasn't a one-time thing. I had to do it over and over again; in fact, I'm still doing it, weeks later. When "Why?" pops back into my mind, bringing its discouragement with it, I have to keep releasing it and putting it away. There are a number of things that compel me to do this.
First, I see the ridiculousness and arrogance of it, as if God ever needs to explain Himself to me. ("Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth; tell me if you know so much." --Job 38:4.) Second, it's a big, heavy box, and carrying it was exhausting. And third, I knew that if I kept my hands full with it, I wouldn't be able to receive anything else. I also see His patience, kindness, and understanding in asking me to place my questions on a shelf. He didn't yell at me for picking up the box in the first place, and He didn't demand that I burn it. I just needed to set it aside. I'm sure He also knows that on other occasions, I'll find a step stool, pull the box down, and fill it with different contents. What's inside might change, but the "Why?" label will stay the same, and the box will always be tempting.
Still, I've seen that those roots of faith are deep. Way down deep, they anchor me to a truth much bigger than any boxes I may pick up along the way: I can trust God with everything.
"I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)
For months and months, I had been working with this single, young friend to help her move beyond a stuck place in her life. She was beginning to take some baby steps toward becoming unstuck. I had new hope for her. She had new vision for herself. God had heard our cries, and things were looking up. Then she went out to pick up burgers one night, a mile from her house, and her progress was hijacked by a guy who ran a red light.
It wouldn't be enough to say we were back at square one. We were at negative ten. This is where, for the purposes of this blog, the story stops being about her and starts being about me and God.
I am not new to this faith thing. I committed my life to Christ at the age of 10 and got really serious about Him at 23. I have years, decades, of experience walking in faith. I have seen Him meet needs time and time again. My roots are deep, and I've lived a lot of years feeling mostly unshakable.
But this senseless car accident, so devastating to someone I'm heavily invested in, dealt a blow to my faith. As I made hundreds of circles around my backyard prayer track crying out to God, I latched on to just one word and held on with all my might: Why? Why, God, would you allow this to happen? Why would you allow my friend's progress and hope to be stolen? Why did it have to be her car? Why did it have to be so bad? Why would you leave her traumatized, carless, and unable to work? Why, why, why?
Yes, I could be grateful that she came out alive. That her injuries weren't worse. I thanked Him for those things, but only when my obsession with "why" allowed me a quick breather. Then the questions came right back.
I'm not much of a visual person, but it seems that the more time I spend with God, the more He gives me pictures to make His points. He began putting a picture in my mind of a big, heavy box labeled "WHY?" And then He asked me (in that way in which God speaks to us without literally speaking while still letting us know it's definitely Him) if I would be willing to put that box on a shelf. He wasn't asking me to destroy it, just to set it aside.
Now if by some strange turn of events I allowed you a peek at my closet, after first gasping in horror you would then see that there is no room on a shelf for even a small box, let alone a big one. But in His graciousness, God's picture to me included a nice, clean, open shelf, ready and waiting to receive my large box.
Was I willing to set aside my need for understanding? To trust that He is always working for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes, whether we can see that happening or not? Was I willing to move past "Why?" and receive whatever He had for me on the other side of my letting go?
My fingers were clenched. It wasn't an easy release. It also wasn't a one-time thing. I had to do it over and over again; in fact, I'm still doing it, weeks later. When "Why?" pops back into my mind, bringing its discouragement with it, I have to keep releasing it and putting it away. There are a number of things that compel me to do this.
First, I see the ridiculousness and arrogance of it, as if God ever needs to explain Himself to me. ("Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth; tell me if you know so much." --Job 38:4.) Second, it's a big, heavy box, and carrying it was exhausting. And third, I knew that if I kept my hands full with it, I wouldn't be able to receive anything else. I also see His patience, kindness, and understanding in asking me to place my questions on a shelf. He didn't yell at me for picking up the box in the first place, and He didn't demand that I burn it. I just needed to set it aside. I'm sure He also knows that on other occasions, I'll find a step stool, pull the box down, and fill it with different contents. What's inside might change, but the "Why?" label will stay the same, and the box will always be tempting.
Still, I've seen that those roots of faith are deep. Way down deep, they anchor me to a truth much bigger than any boxes I may pick up along the way: I can trust God with everything.
"I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Justice, Yes, But Also Forgiveness
The sound of careers--lives, really--crashing to the ground echoes out of my television every time I turn on the nightly news. One more movie star, artist, athlete, journalist, or politician is brought to trial in the courtroom of public opinion, and a guilty verdict is all but guaranteed. It doesn't matter if the statutes of limitations has passed by 20 years. It doesn't matter that whatever incident has placed them in this position wasn't even illegal. The only thing that matters is that someone has messed up, and justice must be served.
Justice is good. Justice is important to God. It's important in keeping a society safe, intact, and healthy. No one wants to live in a world without justice. But no one wants to live in a world without forgiveness either.
One of the most important parts of being human is our ability to be vulnerable and tell the truth about ourselves. We've all messed up. We all did something colossally stupid at some point in our lives. Our imperfections, mistakes, and failures unite us as human beings. No one's doing this life thing perfectly. We're all tripping all over ourselves, if not today then yesterday, and if not yesterday then tomorrow. Wisdom is hard won. The Bible says all we have to do is ask for wisdom and God will give it, but it doesn't usually come in a beautiful package wrapped in a bow. His gift of wisdom often comes on the other side of a mess we've made. Growth through mistakes is another uniting human force.
My concern, as I watch the evening news and hear the crumbling, is that people are going to stop telling the hard truth about themselves. We'll be denied their stories of growth and transformation because they're too afraid to admit they were flawed in the first place.
My concern is that no decent, respectable person will ever run for public office again because of something foolish they did at 19.
My concern is that we're headed toward a world where justice is everything, and forgiveness is seen as weakness.
We need both. People need to be held accountable for their actions. We all need to know that what we do and say matters and has consequences. We need to become wise enough to recognize when "I'm so sorry" is the only acceptable thing to say. But we also need to forgive. We need to live graciously, understanding that people make mistakes, and that those mistakes don't necessarily represent the sum total of a person's life. A consistent pattern of bad behavior is one thing. A foolish, ill-timed comment is another. I made two yesterday. What about you? And aren't you thankful that your life didn't come crashing down as a result? What about a horrible act of bad judgment that hurt another person? Yes, I've done that as well. Thankfully, the acts have gotten less horrible, the judgment less bad, and the hurt less severe over the years, but if anyone wants to dig around my high school past, they'll find plenty to condemn me with. It may not be recorded on fuzzy 1980's video or plastered on my yearbook pages (especially since I was the yearbook editor), but that doesn't mean it's not there.
Oh, but the grace of God. The forgiveness of God and other people. These have transformed me. This is my story. If you want to know who I am today, who I really am, you're going to need to hear about who I used to be, and how grace changed me. How it's still changing me.
Can we be a society that upholds justice while leaving plenty of room for grace and forgiveness? I pray that we can.
Justice is good. Justice is important to God. It's important in keeping a society safe, intact, and healthy. No one wants to live in a world without justice. But no one wants to live in a world without forgiveness either.
One of the most important parts of being human is our ability to be vulnerable and tell the truth about ourselves. We've all messed up. We all did something colossally stupid at some point in our lives. Our imperfections, mistakes, and failures unite us as human beings. No one's doing this life thing perfectly. We're all tripping all over ourselves, if not today then yesterday, and if not yesterday then tomorrow. Wisdom is hard won. The Bible says all we have to do is ask for wisdom and God will give it, but it doesn't usually come in a beautiful package wrapped in a bow. His gift of wisdom often comes on the other side of a mess we've made. Growth through mistakes is another uniting human force.
My concern, as I watch the evening news and hear the crumbling, is that people are going to stop telling the hard truth about themselves. We'll be denied their stories of growth and transformation because they're too afraid to admit they were flawed in the first place.
My concern is that no decent, respectable person will ever run for public office again because of something foolish they did at 19.
My concern is that we're headed toward a world where justice is everything, and forgiveness is seen as weakness.
We need both. People need to be held accountable for their actions. We all need to know that what we do and say matters and has consequences. We need to become wise enough to recognize when "I'm so sorry" is the only acceptable thing to say. But we also need to forgive. We need to live graciously, understanding that people make mistakes, and that those mistakes don't necessarily represent the sum total of a person's life. A consistent pattern of bad behavior is one thing. A foolish, ill-timed comment is another. I made two yesterday. What about you? And aren't you thankful that your life didn't come crashing down as a result? What about a horrible act of bad judgment that hurt another person? Yes, I've done that as well. Thankfully, the acts have gotten less horrible, the judgment less bad, and the hurt less severe over the years, but if anyone wants to dig around my high school past, they'll find plenty to condemn me with. It may not be recorded on fuzzy 1980's video or plastered on my yearbook pages (especially since I was the yearbook editor), but that doesn't mean it's not there.
Oh, but the grace of God. The forgiveness of God and other people. These have transformed me. This is my story. If you want to know who I am today, who I really am, you're going to need to hear about who I used to be, and how grace changed me. How it's still changing me.
Can we be a society that upholds justice while leaving plenty of room for grace and forgiveness? I pray that we can.
Monday, January 21, 2019
No Getting Around Love
Anyone who's spent an hour in the New Testament knows that love is a big deal. You're only a few pages in when Jesus starts talking about love. Funny thing is, the first time Matthew quotes Jesus talking about love, it's about loving your enemies. Right off the bat, we can tell this love thing isn't going to be easy.
Three of Jesus's biographers quote what's come to be known as the Great Commandment: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength--and if that's not challenging enough, love your neighbor as yourself. We've heard it so often we can quote it in our sleep. But do you ever pause and think about what it really means? Jesus is telling us to love Joe next door with his loud music and barky dogs, Mrs. Smith holding up the carpool line as she chats on her cell phone, and the 16-year-old girl in youth group who rolls her eyes at us with tangible disdain. To love your snoopy mother-in-law and the soccer coach who won't stop screaming at your kid. These are our neighbors. The ones we're supposed to love as we love ourselves. Oh, my.
And then there's the Apostle John, who lets us know that if we don't love our brothers and sisters, we don't love God. We don't even know God. And worse yet, if we say we love God but hate someone else, we're liars. I like to give myself a pass on this one. There's no one I actually hate. But would someone know that by the way I complain against Joe? The way I'm so easily irritated by Mrs. Smith? By the way I judge the hard-to-love girl I'm supposed to be discipling? Hate doesn't mean I'm cussing people out and slashing their tires. Hate can also look like judging, ignoring, grumbling, and slandering.
I've spent a lot more than an hour in the New Testament, and I've read all about the importance of loving other people. But until recently, I didn't quite get that this is what it's all about. Two books have redirected my attention to these commands on love. Commands. That's what they are. Not suggestions. Not "it would sure be nice" recommendations. Commands from God Himself.
In Letters to the Church, Francis Chan proposes that the greatest missionary strategy of all time and the only one necessary is for Christians to love one another. If we were to follow Christ's command to love one another and live in unity within the church, the world would: a) be dumbstruck, and b)see that Jesus was who He said He was.
The second book has stirred up plenty of controversy. Last year Andy Stanley created a firestorm by suggesting that believers "unhitch" their faith from the Old Testament. In Irresistible, he explains what he meant. While I resist his general premise and shock-and-awe strategy for getting his point across, what I got most from his book was vision for the priority and urgency of love. His unpacking of 1 John leaves no loopholes or work-arounds. God is love. We know God, grow in relationship with God, and love God by loving the people around us. I would so prefer to love God by sitting on my quiet deck reading a book about Him. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's also no biblical precedent for sequestering myself at home with the latest, greatest theology book. The precedent is washing my neighbor's stinky feet. Or at least enduring his barky dog with grace and patience.
As I read both of these books, the thought kept occurring to me that they're not talking about loving devil worshipers, bullying atheists, or ISIS recruiters. They're talking about loving other Christians, our brothers and sisters in the faith. It shouldn't be so hard.
It also occurred to me, repeatedly, that I don't have to pound the pavement looking for people to love. The people who need me to love them the most, and the ones who are sometimes the most challenging, live right inside my house.
I can't seem to get around the fact that love is what it's all about. And my excuses--"I'm just not good at love, I'm not wired for it the way others are"--aren't cutting it. When it comes to loving others, I may be a kindergartner, but I can't stay there. I've got so far to go. In His goodness, God has put people in my life who are love grad students. They give me a picture of what I'm shooting for. They give me hope that I can get out of kindergarten, that I can get serious about following the Great Commandment, that my hard heart can become soft and gooey.
When we love others, we pass from death to life (1 John 3:14). Anyone who does not love remains not only in kindergarten, but in death. That's motivating. Even more motivating is this example from Stanley's book: Is there anything that brings parents more joy than watching their children love, enjoy, and care for each other? I can't think of anything. What if that's just a hint of how God feels when we're loving His other children well?
Three of Jesus's biographers quote what's come to be known as the Great Commandment: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength--and if that's not challenging enough, love your neighbor as yourself. We've heard it so often we can quote it in our sleep. But do you ever pause and think about what it really means? Jesus is telling us to love Joe next door with his loud music and barky dogs, Mrs. Smith holding up the carpool line as she chats on her cell phone, and the 16-year-old girl in youth group who rolls her eyes at us with tangible disdain. To love your snoopy mother-in-law and the soccer coach who won't stop screaming at your kid. These are our neighbors. The ones we're supposed to love as we love ourselves. Oh, my.
And then there's the Apostle John, who lets us know that if we don't love our brothers and sisters, we don't love God. We don't even know God. And worse yet, if we say we love God but hate someone else, we're liars. I like to give myself a pass on this one. There's no one I actually hate. But would someone know that by the way I complain against Joe? The way I'm so easily irritated by Mrs. Smith? By the way I judge the hard-to-love girl I'm supposed to be discipling? Hate doesn't mean I'm cussing people out and slashing their tires. Hate can also look like judging, ignoring, grumbling, and slandering.
I've spent a lot more than an hour in the New Testament, and I've read all about the importance of loving other people. But until recently, I didn't quite get that this is what it's all about. Two books have redirected my attention to these commands on love. Commands. That's what they are. Not suggestions. Not "it would sure be nice" recommendations. Commands from God Himself.
In Letters to the Church, Francis Chan proposes that the greatest missionary strategy of all time and the only one necessary is for Christians to love one another. If we were to follow Christ's command to love one another and live in unity within the church, the world would: a) be dumbstruck, and b)see that Jesus was who He said He was.
The second book has stirred up plenty of controversy. Last year Andy Stanley created a firestorm by suggesting that believers "unhitch" their faith from the Old Testament. In Irresistible, he explains what he meant. While I resist his general premise and shock-and-awe strategy for getting his point across, what I got most from his book was vision for the priority and urgency of love. His unpacking of 1 John leaves no loopholes or work-arounds. God is love. We know God, grow in relationship with God, and love God by loving the people around us. I would so prefer to love God by sitting on my quiet deck reading a book about Him. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's also no biblical precedent for sequestering myself at home with the latest, greatest theology book. The precedent is washing my neighbor's stinky feet. Or at least enduring his barky dog with grace and patience.
As I read both of these books, the thought kept occurring to me that they're not talking about loving devil worshipers, bullying atheists, or ISIS recruiters. They're talking about loving other Christians, our brothers and sisters in the faith. It shouldn't be so hard.
It also occurred to me, repeatedly, that I don't have to pound the pavement looking for people to love. The people who need me to love them the most, and the ones who are sometimes the most challenging, live right inside my house.
I can't seem to get around the fact that love is what it's all about. And my excuses--"I'm just not good at love, I'm not wired for it the way others are"--aren't cutting it. When it comes to loving others, I may be a kindergartner, but I can't stay there. I've got so far to go. In His goodness, God has put people in my life who are love grad students. They give me a picture of what I'm shooting for. They give me hope that I can get out of kindergarten, that I can get serious about following the Great Commandment, that my hard heart can become soft and gooey.
When we love others, we pass from death to life (1 John 3:14). Anyone who does not love remains not only in kindergarten, but in death. That's motivating. Even more motivating is this example from Stanley's book: Is there anything that brings parents more joy than watching their children love, enjoy, and care for each other? I can't think of anything. What if that's just a hint of how God feels when we're loving His other children well?
Monday, December 31, 2018
2018 Book List
My book list this year is lengthy. Pace yourself, skim, or, if you're not a reader, come back next time.
CLASSIC FICTION (otherwise known as books my teenagers read in school this year)
Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
For years I’ve wanted to read the books my kids read in their high school lit classes, and because this book caused some controversy this year, I decided it was time to read it for myself. I was surprised, first of all, by its relative tameness. By today’s standards, it’s downright chaste. While I did not enjoy the book’s characters, I thought it was excellent fodder for conversation about morality. The premise is that a painting becomes a visual representation of the title character’s soul. While he stays young and beautiful, admired by everyone (at first), the painting bears the marks of his flagrant sins. The moral of the story: our actions have consequences, our friends rub off on us for better or worse, and we do have souls that are affected by the way we choose to live. These lessons were written on each page of the book, and in the hands of a good English teacher, Dorian Gray would lead to important conversation.
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
This classic reminded me a little of The Bridges of Madison County without the sex. Except sadder. There’s not much here except hopelessness. The story is short and slow. Very little happens. I didn’t care about any of the characters. So what’s the point? Why do our high schoolers read this? Like Dorian Gray, it demonstrates that our actions have consequences, and sometimes we’ll live with those consequences the rest of our lives. We always have choices, even in desperate situations, and those choices should not be made impulsively. That’s what I got from it, but maybe a class full of AP students came up with a lot more.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
When I talked to a group of high school students about this one, they brought up the contrast between rights and responsibility. I'm glad they've been taught to find something instructive in even the grimmest of novels. Written at the turn of the 20th century, this is a staple of the early feminism movement. Did that movement really wish to represent itself with a spoiled, selfish, indulgent narcissist of a woman who can’t find anything more meaningful to do with her time than contemplate how restless and unsatisfied she is with her husband and children? My suggestion to Edna, the main character, was to raise her own children, change some diapers, wash some dishes, and pursue gratitude. Life becomes a lot let restless when you have real work to do.
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby was the book that made me fall in love with writing. Some of Fitzgerald’s literary genius is on display in Paradise, his first book, written when he was right out of college. Like Gatsby, there’s nothing uplifting here, and the characters are mostly unlikeable, especially the leads. But just about the time I thought I couldn’t take another page of it, I’d run across a sentence so well crafted that it gave me chills. This one, though, is probably only for the committed Fitzgerald readers.
MODERN FICTION
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
I don’t pick up a fiction book lightly. Because I only let myself read a handful a year, I do my research. Based on the reviews of the best books of 2017, this one was a clear choice. But once I started reading, I was reminded that fiction is full of people I don’t like. I’ve also noticed that as my kids have gotten older, I’m more critical of the way children and teens are portrayed in books. J.K. Rowling is brilliant, but 13-year-olds don’t talk like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. And 15-and 16-year-olds (at least the ones I know) are not nearly as complex or predictable as the characters in this book.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
With most fiction books, you become engrossed in the lives of a small number of characters. Not this one. In Homegoing, a story that begins with two girls born to the same mother in an African village in the 1700s, characters’ whole lives begin and end in one chapter. Each chapter details the life of one of the descendants of the girls, taking us right into the present. I wouldn’t call this enjoyable reading, and certainly not easy reading. But it is another thought-provoking book on the horrors of slavery and its far-reaching consequences.
The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion
This sequal to The Rosie Project is light, far-fetched, quirky, a little inappropriate, and just plain fun.
NON-FICTION: My attempts to understand the world
Just Immigration: American Policy in Christian Perspective by Mark R. Amstutz
This recommendation from Christianity Today read like a doctoral dissertation. I’m sure there are better books that address this topic in a much more interesting, readable way. I did a lot of skimming but managed to get the point, one that I had already pretty much landed on for myself. The Bible does instruct us to care for the foreigner, but that does not entail opening up the borders and letting everyone in. It’s the church’s responsibility to care for those who are here, legally or illegally, and, perhaps more strategically, provide support for refugees in their own lands. It is the job of government to protect its people and its borders. The best argument Amstutz made was this: It is a person’s right to pull out of anything—a job, a club, a committee, a country. But it is not their right to receive automatic membership into something else. You don’t quit your job and then push your way into a new job. Companies have hiring procedures and due process. So do countries. There, I just saved you hours of difficult reading.
Choosing Donald Trump: Anger, Hope, and Why Christian Conservatives Supported Him by Stephen Mansfield
I’ve been a bit obsessive in my quest to figure out what in the world happened in the last presidential election. Mansfield’s brief book—I read its 181 pages in a couple of days—is the most helpful book I’ve read so far. He enlightens us on Donald Trump’s own brand of “faith,” largely shaped by the pastor of his youth, the late Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking. Mansfield also unpacks the series of events that led evangelical Christians to overlook Trump’s obvious moral flaws and support him in droves. He urges those pastors and religious leaders who still have Trump’s ear to find and maintain a prophetic distance and speak words of life and truth tour president. The following quote is long, but it’s insightful. After writing about Trump’s lifelong admiration for religious teachers, and his respect for those who are willing to test and challenge him in order to make him better, Mansfield wrote: “Trump’s association with the nation’s leading ministers during the 2016 presidential campaign might have led to profound change for him and, ultimately, to a nobler president for the country. They might have called him to a more orthodox and full-bodied belief system. They might have challenged him about some of his extreme behaviors. When he swore, they might have reminded him of his younger listeners. When he called for violence against protestors or went on racist rants or spoke of women in disparaging terms, they might have reminded him of the example of Jesus and helped him recover his moral balance. They might have also whispered in his ear from time to time, ‘Always remember the poor.’ In short, had they maintained prophetic distance, had they been more interested in urging the candidate toward God and his ways and less interested in allying themselves to power at any moral cost, great good might have been done. It was largely not to be.” This book is certainly not letting Trump off the hook for his own bad behavior, but it also calls his supporters, those who call themselves followers of Christ, to their own responsibility. The religious conservatives who voted him into office “have taken responsibility for him now, and this may, in time, exact a very dear price.”
Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism by Drew Hart
This was the hardest book I read all year. I had to force myself to push beyond how it made me feel and swim through my sea of self-justifications to make it to the end. I have come to terms with the fact that I’m part of a dominant people group who have oppressed people for centuries. I’m in the process of learning why it’s important to be mindful and repentant of that and allowing it to shape the way I view people and the evening news. But oh it gets personal and hard when I’m awakened to my very own prejudices. It’s easier to take responsibility and repent for something your great-great grandfather did 150 years ago than what lies in your own heart today. Nothing fun or enjoyable about this read, and I had mental battles with the author throughout, but by the time I finished, I was glad I had allowed it to shape my perspective.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson
I felt like I deserved a trophy after finishing this 448-page book. If you’re not familiar with Jordan Peterson, Google him. He’s been called one of the most important thinkers of our day, and evangelicals have aligned with him because of his conservative viewpoint. He’s obviously a brilliant man, but he’s also pretty down-to-earth. His advice is solid: treat yourself like someone you’re responsible for helping; make friends with people who want the best for you; pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient; compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today; do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. The most interesting part of this book to me, though, was how someone can know the Bible inside and out and have a deep respect for God (or at least the idea of God) and completely miss the point about grace. What results is a skewed theology and a defeating conclusion: try to make the world a better place by being the best person you can be. He’s so close, and yet so far. Still, I was glad to have read his book. His words are mostly accessible and often clever, but this is not a book you can read in the living room while your kids play video games. It requires tremendous focus, and even with that, I felt like I only caught about half of what he was saying. It was worth the effort, though. I feel smarter for having read it. If you’re a serious reader and a deep thinker, you won’t want to miss this one. Otherwise, check out the much shorter summary version.
NON-FICTION: Topics relevant to my life right now
Letting Go: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding the College Years by Karen Levin Coburn and Madge Lawrence Treeger
This is supposedly the classic text book on releasing your child into the world of college. It’s been around a long time; the version I read was the sixth edition. I think I may have benefitted from an older version. This one focused a lot on issues of sexual identity and harassment and other buzz words of the day. While not all of it felt useful, I did take away some practical tips: leave right away (don’t dawdle on campus or even in town after you say goodbye to your student) and let your child propose the terms of his communication with the family. Ironically, I didn’t follow either of these, but I’ve still got three kids to go. Some good stuff nestled into these 500 pages, but not something I’d recommend for most people. Find something shorter.
Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey
I’ve always liked Yancey’s style, and he was a logical place to turn as I searched for wider perspectives on prayer. He includes interviews, scattered throughout the book, of people’s thoughts and experiences with prayer. This was a helpful book—though a bit long—and I particularly learned from his ideas on wrestling with God in prayer. Citing numerous examples, he encourages his readers to get in the trenches with God, to call out His qualities and ask Him to show up.
NON-FICTION: Some good and some great Christian topics
Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World by Eric Metaxas
I am the product of a rural education, which I like to blame for many of the educational gaps I seem to have. I knew a little about Martin Luther, but this book opened my eyes to just how significant his actions and writings were. I kept looking up to tell my kids what I thought were astounding things, to which they always responded, “Um, yes, mom. Did you not know that?” I relished every detail, and like anything Eric Metaxas writes, I hung on every word. Again, not a book for everyone, but if you’re at all interested in how Christianity moved from the Dark Ages into the modern world, and why we worship in so many of the ways we do, this book is immensely helpful. Metaxas connects the dots between Luther and the things we take for granted in the modern world. We assume the world has always been this way, but it hasn’t—not by a long stretch. The fact that Christians today don’t spend all our money on bone fragments believed to have come from the thumb of the Virgin Mary? Thank Martin Luther.
Letters to the Church by Francis Chan
I’ll read anything Chan writes, but this was especially good. It’s the kind of book that soaks down into your core. Very few days pass without one of Chan’s points returning to my mind. Could it really be that the greatest evangelism strategy of all time is simply that Christians love one another well? And is there anything simple about that? So much to chew on in this book. Required reading.
The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts by Joe Rigney
I’m going to recommend this one, even though I only made it halfway through. I tried reading it as a library loan on my Kindle but realized pretty quickly this is one of those rare books that I need to buy, read, and then read again. The theology is deep and thought provoking. The thesis is that everyday things—laughter, a good steak, a game with your kids—can be seen as holy and can draw us into deeper worship of God. This book came out in 2014, and I’m surprised I didn’t hear more about it. It’s good—even to the point of being a game changer in terms of my thinking. It’s more complex than I was expecting, but it’s the best kind of complex. I can’t wait to read more.
Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen
This is a staple of Christian nonfiction, and Nouwen has been on my list for a long time. I’ll definitely be reading more of his books. This one was written by Nouwen to a long-time friend, a nonbeliever, who asked Nouwen to explain the spiritual life in easily understandable terms. He answered with a discussion of four words: taken, blessed, broken, and given. I enjoyed reading the book and highlighted some profound statements, but I have to admit that five months later, I can’t remember much about it.
Keep Your Love On: Connection, Communication and Boundaries by Danny Silk
This book I read and discussed with a friend. Silk, a pastor, gives practical relationship tips that everyone can use. He includes a lot of marriage examples. That makes it extremely helpful for married couples, but it’s also applicable to other kinds of relationships. Most interesting to me was his discussion on what it means to be a powerful person. I don’t care for the term, but his explanation opened my eyes to myself and some of the tricky people around me. This is a great choice for anyone who wants to work on communicating clearly and setting good boundaries in relationships.
Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa TerKeurst
This is a great book for certain people: those who have been divorced, dumped, unfriended, fired, or passed over. Or for those people who chronically struggle with feeling like they’re on the fringes of all the good stuff in life. For everyone else, skip ahead to a very useful chapter 14, which gives pages of truth speak for those times when you’re spinning out of control. My highlighter nearly ran out of ink on those pages.
LOOKING AHEAD: On my list for 2019
Falling Free
Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World
Feed the Mouth that Bites You
Your Teenager Isn’t Crazy
Letters to an American Christian
The Cost of Discipleship
Generous Justice
The Return of the Prodigal Son
Practice Resurrection
Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner
Before We Were Yours
Why We Sleep
How to Think
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
This classic reminded me a little of The Bridges of Madison County without the sex. Except sadder. There’s not much here except hopelessness. The story is short and slow. Very little happens. I didn’t care about any of the characters. So what’s the point? Why do our high schoolers read this? Like Dorian Gray, it demonstrates that our actions have consequences, and sometimes we’ll live with those consequences the rest of our lives. We always have choices, even in desperate situations, and those choices should not be made impulsively. That’s what I got from it, but maybe a class full of AP students came up with a lot more.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
When I talked to a group of high school students about this one, they brought up the contrast between rights and responsibility. I'm glad they've been taught to find something instructive in even the grimmest of novels. Written at the turn of the 20th century, this is a staple of the early feminism movement. Did that movement really wish to represent itself with a spoiled, selfish, indulgent narcissist of a woman who can’t find anything more meaningful to do with her time than contemplate how restless and unsatisfied she is with her husband and children? My suggestion to Edna, the main character, was to raise her own children, change some diapers, wash some dishes, and pursue gratitude. Life becomes a lot let restless when you have real work to do.
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby was the book that made me fall in love with writing. Some of Fitzgerald’s literary genius is on display in Paradise, his first book, written when he was right out of college. Like Gatsby, there’s nothing uplifting here, and the characters are mostly unlikeable, especially the leads. But just about the time I thought I couldn’t take another page of it, I’d run across a sentence so well crafted that it gave me chills. This one, though, is probably only for the committed Fitzgerald readers.
MODERN FICTION
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
I don’t pick up a fiction book lightly. Because I only let myself read a handful a year, I do my research. Based on the reviews of the best books of 2017, this one was a clear choice. But once I started reading, I was reminded that fiction is full of people I don’t like. I’ve also noticed that as my kids have gotten older, I’m more critical of the way children and teens are portrayed in books. J.K. Rowling is brilliant, but 13-year-olds don’t talk like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. And 15-and 16-year-olds (at least the ones I know) are not nearly as complex or predictable as the characters in this book.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
With most fiction books, you become engrossed in the lives of a small number of characters. Not this one. In Homegoing, a story that begins with two girls born to the same mother in an African village in the 1700s, characters’ whole lives begin and end in one chapter. Each chapter details the life of one of the descendants of the girls, taking us right into the present. I wouldn’t call this enjoyable reading, and certainly not easy reading. But it is another thought-provoking book on the horrors of slavery and its far-reaching consequences.
The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion
This sequal to The Rosie Project is light, far-fetched, quirky, a little inappropriate, and just plain fun.
NON-FICTION: My attempts to understand the world
Just Immigration: American Policy in Christian Perspective by Mark R. Amstutz
This recommendation from Christianity Today read like a doctoral dissertation. I’m sure there are better books that address this topic in a much more interesting, readable way. I did a lot of skimming but managed to get the point, one that I had already pretty much landed on for myself. The Bible does instruct us to care for the foreigner, but that does not entail opening up the borders and letting everyone in. It’s the church’s responsibility to care for those who are here, legally or illegally, and, perhaps more strategically, provide support for refugees in their own lands. It is the job of government to protect its people and its borders. The best argument Amstutz made was this: It is a person’s right to pull out of anything—a job, a club, a committee, a country. But it is not their right to receive automatic membership into something else. You don’t quit your job and then push your way into a new job. Companies have hiring procedures and due process. So do countries. There, I just saved you hours of difficult reading.
Choosing Donald Trump: Anger, Hope, and Why Christian Conservatives Supported Him by Stephen Mansfield
I’ve been a bit obsessive in my quest to figure out what in the world happened in the last presidential election. Mansfield’s brief book—I read its 181 pages in a couple of days—is the most helpful book I’ve read so far. He enlightens us on Donald Trump’s own brand of “faith,” largely shaped by the pastor of his youth, the late Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking. Mansfield also unpacks the series of events that led evangelical Christians to overlook Trump’s obvious moral flaws and support him in droves. He urges those pastors and religious leaders who still have Trump’s ear to find and maintain a prophetic distance and speak words of life and truth tour president. The following quote is long, but it’s insightful. After writing about Trump’s lifelong admiration for religious teachers, and his respect for those who are willing to test and challenge him in order to make him better, Mansfield wrote: “Trump’s association with the nation’s leading ministers during the 2016 presidential campaign might have led to profound change for him and, ultimately, to a nobler president for the country. They might have called him to a more orthodox and full-bodied belief system. They might have challenged him about some of his extreme behaviors. When he swore, they might have reminded him of his younger listeners. When he called for violence against protestors or went on racist rants or spoke of women in disparaging terms, they might have reminded him of the example of Jesus and helped him recover his moral balance. They might have also whispered in his ear from time to time, ‘Always remember the poor.’ In short, had they maintained prophetic distance, had they been more interested in urging the candidate toward God and his ways and less interested in allying themselves to power at any moral cost, great good might have been done. It was largely not to be.” This book is certainly not letting Trump off the hook for his own bad behavior, but it also calls his supporters, those who call themselves followers of Christ, to their own responsibility. The religious conservatives who voted him into office “have taken responsibility for him now, and this may, in time, exact a very dear price.”
Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism by Drew Hart
This was the hardest book I read all year. I had to force myself to push beyond how it made me feel and swim through my sea of self-justifications to make it to the end. I have come to terms with the fact that I’m part of a dominant people group who have oppressed people for centuries. I’m in the process of learning why it’s important to be mindful and repentant of that and allowing it to shape the way I view people and the evening news. But oh it gets personal and hard when I’m awakened to my very own prejudices. It’s easier to take responsibility and repent for something your great-great grandfather did 150 years ago than what lies in your own heart today. Nothing fun or enjoyable about this read, and I had mental battles with the author throughout, but by the time I finished, I was glad I had allowed it to shape my perspective.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson
I felt like I deserved a trophy after finishing this 448-page book. If you’re not familiar with Jordan Peterson, Google him. He’s been called one of the most important thinkers of our day, and evangelicals have aligned with him because of his conservative viewpoint. He’s obviously a brilliant man, but he’s also pretty down-to-earth. His advice is solid: treat yourself like someone you’re responsible for helping; make friends with people who want the best for you; pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient; compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today; do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. The most interesting part of this book to me, though, was how someone can know the Bible inside and out and have a deep respect for God (or at least the idea of God) and completely miss the point about grace. What results is a skewed theology and a defeating conclusion: try to make the world a better place by being the best person you can be. He’s so close, and yet so far. Still, I was glad to have read his book. His words are mostly accessible and often clever, but this is not a book you can read in the living room while your kids play video games. It requires tremendous focus, and even with that, I felt like I only caught about half of what he was saying. It was worth the effort, though. I feel smarter for having read it. If you’re a serious reader and a deep thinker, you won’t want to miss this one. Otherwise, check out the much shorter summary version.
NON-FICTION: Topics relevant to my life right now
Letting Go: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding the College Years by Karen Levin Coburn and Madge Lawrence Treeger
This is supposedly the classic text book on releasing your child into the world of college. It’s been around a long time; the version I read was the sixth edition. I think I may have benefitted from an older version. This one focused a lot on issues of sexual identity and harassment and other buzz words of the day. While not all of it felt useful, I did take away some practical tips: leave right away (don’t dawdle on campus or even in town after you say goodbye to your student) and let your child propose the terms of his communication with the family. Ironically, I didn’t follow either of these, but I’ve still got three kids to go. Some good stuff nestled into these 500 pages, but not something I’d recommend for most people. Find something shorter.
Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey
I’ve always liked Yancey’s style, and he was a logical place to turn as I searched for wider perspectives on prayer. He includes interviews, scattered throughout the book, of people’s thoughts and experiences with prayer. This was a helpful book—though a bit long—and I particularly learned from his ideas on wrestling with God in prayer. Citing numerous examples, he encourages his readers to get in the trenches with God, to call out His qualities and ask Him to show up.
NON-FICTION: Some good and some great Christian topics
Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World by Eric Metaxas
I am the product of a rural education, which I like to blame for many of the educational gaps I seem to have. I knew a little about Martin Luther, but this book opened my eyes to just how significant his actions and writings were. I kept looking up to tell my kids what I thought were astounding things, to which they always responded, “Um, yes, mom. Did you not know that?” I relished every detail, and like anything Eric Metaxas writes, I hung on every word. Again, not a book for everyone, but if you’re at all interested in how Christianity moved from the Dark Ages into the modern world, and why we worship in so many of the ways we do, this book is immensely helpful. Metaxas connects the dots between Luther and the things we take for granted in the modern world. We assume the world has always been this way, but it hasn’t—not by a long stretch. The fact that Christians today don’t spend all our money on bone fragments believed to have come from the thumb of the Virgin Mary? Thank Martin Luther.
Letters to the Church by Francis Chan
I’ll read anything Chan writes, but this was especially good. It’s the kind of book that soaks down into your core. Very few days pass without one of Chan’s points returning to my mind. Could it really be that the greatest evangelism strategy of all time is simply that Christians love one another well? And is there anything simple about that? So much to chew on in this book. Required reading.
The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts by Joe Rigney
I’m going to recommend this one, even though I only made it halfway through. I tried reading it as a library loan on my Kindle but realized pretty quickly this is one of those rare books that I need to buy, read, and then read again. The theology is deep and thought provoking. The thesis is that everyday things—laughter, a good steak, a game with your kids—can be seen as holy and can draw us into deeper worship of God. This book came out in 2014, and I’m surprised I didn’t hear more about it. It’s good—even to the point of being a game changer in terms of my thinking. It’s more complex than I was expecting, but it’s the best kind of complex. I can’t wait to read more.
Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen
This is a staple of Christian nonfiction, and Nouwen has been on my list for a long time. I’ll definitely be reading more of his books. This one was written by Nouwen to a long-time friend, a nonbeliever, who asked Nouwen to explain the spiritual life in easily understandable terms. He answered with a discussion of four words: taken, blessed, broken, and given. I enjoyed reading the book and highlighted some profound statements, but I have to admit that five months later, I can’t remember much about it.
Keep Your Love On: Connection, Communication and Boundaries by Danny Silk
This book I read and discussed with a friend. Silk, a pastor, gives practical relationship tips that everyone can use. He includes a lot of marriage examples. That makes it extremely helpful for married couples, but it’s also applicable to other kinds of relationships. Most interesting to me was his discussion on what it means to be a powerful person. I don’t care for the term, but his explanation opened my eyes to myself and some of the tricky people around me. This is a great choice for anyone who wants to work on communicating clearly and setting good boundaries in relationships.
Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa TerKeurst
This is a great book for certain people: those who have been divorced, dumped, unfriended, fired, or passed over. Or for those people who chronically struggle with feeling like they’re on the fringes of all the good stuff in life. For everyone else, skip ahead to a very useful chapter 14, which gives pages of truth speak for those times when you’re spinning out of control. My highlighter nearly ran out of ink on those pages.
LOOKING AHEAD: On my list for 2019
Falling Free
Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World
Feed the Mouth that Bites You
Your Teenager Isn’t Crazy
Letters to an American Christian
The Cost of Discipleship
Generous Justice
The Return of the Prodigal Son
Practice Resurrection
Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner
Before We Were Yours
Why We Sleep
How to Think
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