The Furious Longing of God
Tonight was book night around my house. Finished two books...The Country Parson by George Herbert and The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning. Before getting into a specific review of The Furious Longing, I do have to contrast the two books. Herbert's book was written in the 17th century and is a description of the aspects of the life of a country parson. The life described is one that feels very much devoid of joy, wonder, and awe, but instead marked by discipline, rigidity, and dourness. Herbert even goes as far as to say that the parson should not be a happy person but instead one seriously devoted to the tasks of the parish. This is in stark contrast to the picture painted by Manning in his book - a book that is centered completely on the unimaginable love of God and our deep experience of that agape love. I wonder what Herbert would say about Manning.
Anyway, onto my review of The Furious Longing of God. I have to confess that after getting the book, my mind kept phrasing the title as The Furious Longing FOR God instead of the actual title The Furious Longing OF God. So typical of the western Christian mindset to be thinking of the book as yet another thing I need to be thinking about in my spiritual maturation. So, in addition to daily queit times, prayer moments, listening to Christian music, service in the world, etc, I need to add a furious longing for God.
How grace-filled to start to read and be hit by the mistake as I entered in to the initial pages that we are talking about God's furious longing FOR US rather than our furious longing for God. Manning covers similar ground here that he has done in his previous books such as The Ragamuffin Gospel, but it is good ground to keep going over because it is so easily forgotten in our lives. It is so easy to get caught up each day into the "what have we done for God" race that we lose the reality of what God has already done for us. Manning puts it this way:
...I've decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn't only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the falll but I would devote not one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth. No, not one. (p 65)
He has a passage that reaffirms this position near the end:
How is it then that we've come to imagine that Christianity consists primarily in what we do for God? How has this come to be the good news of Jesus? Is the kingdom that he proclaimed to be nothing more than a community of men and women who go to church on Sunday, take an annual spiritual retreat, read their Bibles every now and then, vigorously oppose abortion, don't watch x-rated movies, never use vulgar language, smile a lot, hold doors open for people, root for their favorite team, and get along with everybody? Is that why Jesus went through the bleak and bloody horror of Calvary? Is that why He emerged in shattering glory from the tomb? Is that why He poured out His Holy Spirit on the church? To make nicer men and women with better morals?
The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. (pp 124-125)
This book is quite simply a brief and simple treatise on the amazing and unimaginable love of God expressed through Jesus the Christ and a statement of the freedom that we have in knowing that it is God's love that is the deciding factor and not the works that we lift up so much. As a pastor, I have many conversations with people who struggle each day with acceptance - acceptance from other people, acceptance of themselves, and acceptance by God. They struggle daily with whether they are worth anything, whether they measure up, whether they are loved by anyone or anything. Manning lifts up a clear and unashamed affirmation of the worth of the wonderful and beautiful creations that we each are.
Like Manning's other works, this is not a "scholarly" text that is deeply footnoted and cross referenced, but is filled with the stories of Manning's journey and his encounters with other ragamuffins along the way. It is a book that reinforces a message that so desperately needs to be heard in our journeys.
As I read, two varied "images" came into my mind. The first was that of the storms that sweep the South Dakota prairie each year. Even after living in SD for over nine years, I never got used to the fury and power that those storms contained. They would sweep across the plains and had the power to radically reshape the landscape and the lives of anyone who was in the path of the furious storm. Those were storms of a furious destructive power. Manning speaks of a power in this book that is no less furious, but a love that is furious. A love that, like the storms over the plains, has the power to reshape anything and anyone in its path. But instead of lives being destroyed, this furious love brings healing, redemption, mercy, and hope.
The other "image" was a song by Jars of Clay entitled Hymn from their album, Much Afraid. It is a song that I listened to countless times on my drive back from the hospital internship while in seminary. I listened to it time and time again to remind me of the amazing love of God that I was trying to declare to people going through some of the most difficult periods of their lives that I, myself, was struggling to experience as well through that period in my life. I am actually listening to it right now as I type.
Hymn, by Jars of Clay
Oh refuge of my hardened heart Oh fast pursuing lover come As angels dance around your throne My life by captured fare you own
Not silhouette of trodden faith Nor death shall not my steps be guide I'll pirouette upon my grave For in your path i'll run and hide
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride That I may in your house but kneel And in my brokenness to cry Spring worship unto thee
When beauty breaks the spell of pain The bludgeoned heart shall burst in vain But not when love be pointed king And truth shall thee forever reign
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride That I may in your house but kneel And in my brokenness to cry Spring worship unto thee
Sweet Jesus carry me away From cold of night, and dust of day In ragged hour or salt worn eye Be my desire, my well sprung lye
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride That I may in your house but kneel And in my brokenness to cry Spring worship unto thee
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride That I may in your house but kneel And in my brokenness to cry Spring worship unto thee
Spring worship unto thee Spring worship unto thee
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who struggles with the fact that God has accepted them and that God radically loves them. May you hear the word of grace that God loves you with a love that is beyond anything any of us can conceive.