Crazy Love

If you haven’t read this book yet, trust me, it is worth the few days it would take you. It’s not long, since I know that somewhere in the midst of the negotiating lives we live, that is an instinctive question running through many a mind. It’s a quick read (170 pages).

 Chan has such a knack for making the Gospel so simple and attainable, but not any simpler than it needs to be. What you will feel in this book is your Love called out for what it truly is, or what you may find, for what it is not. You either Love Him (Christ) or you don’t, and many of us say we do. Christianity is more renowned for hypocrisy than for Christ’s life,death and resurrection. Somehow Christians flimsy, fingerpointing lives have drowned out the reason their story even exists…to share Christ’s story. This book, if taken to heart, shoves you right off of the comfortable fencepost that much of Christianity resides on or behind…comfort and compromise.

Some of the simplest phrases in here are the most sobering…

In a pit with a Lion on a snowy day

I just finished reading Mark Batterson´s book, In a pit with a Lion on a snowy day. In the last chapter he confesses that God gave him two lions that were to be chased in his life, planting a church and writing a book. And while the writing venture didn´t happen with ease and was replete with over 10 years of rejections, set-backs and discouraging circumstances, he never stopped chasing. And write that book he did! This book is chalked full of wise, biblical, one-liners, that would make as good of prayer material as they would board room topics. He talks about so much good stuff and how we´re not just missing it, but we´re settling for far less in many aspects of our so-called fearless, ever-chasing-after-God faith. Which means, as one could surmise, we´re not just missing out on God, we don´t even know we are. 

So, instead of trying to re-cap the good stuff he touched on throughout his book in my own paraphrasing attempts, I´m just gonna give it to you the way it came to me…in his words.

2 Samuel 23:20-21… There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab´s mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a pit. then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. Another time, armed only witha club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiahwrenched the spear from the Egyptian´s hand and killed him with it.

You are responsible forever for what you have tamed.     – Antoine de Saint Exupery

“A sense of destiny is our birthright as followers of Christ. God is awfully good at getting us where He wants us to go. But here´s the catch: The right place often feels like the wrong place, and the right time often feels like the wrong time.”

How much happier you´d be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash smash your cosmos.      – G.K. Chesterton

“Lion chasers know and believe God is bigger than any problem they face in this world. They thrive in the toughest circumstances because they know that impossible odds make for amazing miracles. This is how God most enjoys revealing His glory (shaming the mighty with wonderful capable weak)…and how He blesses you in ways you could never have imagined.”

“Too often our prayers revolve around asking God to reduce the odds in our lives. We want everything in our favor. But maybe God wants to stack the odds against us so we can experience a miracle of divine proportions. Our impossible odds are a way to way to experience a new dimension of God´s glory.”

The most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God.   – A.W. Tozer