I just added a new podcast called, “Heart Not Behavior.” click here

Thought you might like to know what I’m reading these days:

1. I recently finished two books on wilderness adventure. (Suburban Florida offers little in the way of surviving avalanches, grizzlies, and cold, so I thought I’d read about others surviving such things.) Wild Men, Wild Alaska is written by a Christian outfitter-guide living in Alaska. Rocky McElveen dishes out fantastic and unbelievably true stories of Alaskan survival. He’s danced with a charging grizzly and woken up to find wolf prints circling his tent.

The second book is called Deep Survival, by Laurence Gonzalez. Though the author doesn’t allow for the rescuing hand of God in the stories he chronicles, he does a great job of explaining why some people live and others die in the wilderness or other high-stress situations.

2. I’ve also found Michael Card’s A Sacred Sorrow very helpful. He argues, in contrast to much of the Church’s teaching, that it is appropriate to cry out to God in our pain, even to accuse God. Card reflects upon the desperate, and seemingly irreverant cries of Job, David, Jeremiah, and Jesus. He asks us to recover the “language of lament” because in our lament and even accusations against God, a bridge is built from our hearts to his, allowing us to stay connected to him in our pain. Those who refuse to cry against God’s seeming indifference and insist upon editing their grief actually are in danger of losing heart. Lament is an act of intimacy and connection.

3. I’m well into John Eldredge’s most recent book, The Way of the Wild Heart. As a complimentary book to Wild at Heart, this new book gives men in our culture a path for masculine initiation. How do we help our young sons become men - in a way that they know they are authentic men? More than a description of meaningful ceremonies and initiation events, Eldredge provides a map for each stage of the masculine journey: from Beloved Son, to Cowboy/Ranger, to Lover, to Warrior, to King, and finally, to Sage.

4. I’ve just started Bill Mckibben’s, Deep Economy. Don’t let the title fool you: the book is more about genuine and sustainable community than economics. McKibben wisely insists that our western culture of ‘more is better’ will leave us in ruins, and ultimately won’t give us what we most deeply want. He points us in a better direction so that “more” is replaced with better and more meaningful.

5. I’m currently reading God Is Closer Than You Think, by John Ortberg. I respect Ortberg, not because he was a former teaching pastor at Willow Creek, but because he’s very well read. He’s a great storyteller and sees below the surface of pop Christianity.

For years, I was frustrated by Easter. All the talk about ‘new life,’ and ‘hope’ in Christ seemed rather vague. I could agree that we’d find that new life in the future .. when we go to heaven. I could also agree that we’ll have hope … someday. And this kind of news will bring you joy .. for a little while; until you lose your job, or come down with cancer, or can’t recover from depression, or the other collective stressors that rob us of life-in- the-now.

Part of the problem is how we talk about Easter. For one, we usually talk about it in terms of the Cross and its forgiveness, and have only a vague sense that the Resurrection will bring us hope, one day, when Jesus brings the Kingdom to its fullness.

Sadly, we’ve short-changed the Resurrection by placing its benefits only in the future. If all we are is forgiven and waiting until heaven, what a hopeless life that is. But in fact, we are far more than forgiven: we are offered restoration even this day. That recovery of life is more than we’ve been told. As Francis Schaeffer says, we are offered substantial restoration, substantial healing of our hearts, substantial healing of relationships. We are offered wholeness. Not complete wholeness, for that waits for the coming return of the King; but substantial and meaningful wholeness - a very present restoration.

Where there is death and decay - in relationships, in our bodies, in our breaking hearts - there is an offer of life. “Those that have the Son have the life” now, not simply ‘later.’ We take our place in his Resurrection daily. It is ours, now. We are bound to his unshakeable life. Not just later, but now.

“I have come that they might have an overflow of life.” What kind of God would make you that promise and then withhold it only for ‘later?’ - Not our God who comes for our hearts even now.
Happy Easter.