Grace, Keller, and a Wild Goose

I spent last Saturday sitting on my couch in my pajamas reading The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. It was an amazing, delicious, wonderful way to spend a Saturday.

The Reason for God should be required reading for everyone in humanity.

The book is divided into sections on apologetics (defending your Christian faith) and defining the Christian faith. Fascinating stuff...I loved how Keller has read so much and uses literature as well as the Bible as resources. He seamlessly quotes everyone from Christopher Dawkins to C.S. Lewis to Flannery O'Connor. (He became my hero by quoting Lewis, Dostoyevsky, and J.R.R. Tolkien in the same chapter).

Chapter 11, Religion and the Gospel, was the chapter that changed me and challenged me the most. Keller can say it, my friends - I don't want to give away the chapter, because you need to read it for yourself. But thinking about the lures of sin, self-aggrandizement, and pharisaism discussed in the chapter, and then seeing all of them at play in my heart was uncomfortable, to say the least.

Something really awesome happened next.

Somehow (I think it was the Spirit), the enormity, awesomeness, the infinite love of grace hit me like a ton of bricks . For (I think) the first time, I really understood grace, and I was in tears. I actually woke up in the middle of the night thinking about grace, and reread the chapter at 3 am.

I've never had such an emotional, visceral reaction to grace. And honestly, shouldn't we?

Shouldn't we be overwhelmed and emotional that our sins are forgiven and forgotten?

Or has grace become a routine, almost hackneyed theological concept that no longer shakes our foundation of faith?

I just started reading Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson, and in the first chapter he discusses how perhaps some of us have become bored and 'caged animals' in regards to our faith. We don't let the Spirit overwhelm us and "...choose an accessorized life over a life of adventure, over a life of chasing the Wild Goose." One of the cages Batterson identifies is the cage of routine, when our faith becomes "empty rituals that keep us caged."

Reading these books, I'm realizing that maybe the idea of grace has become routine, like my grown-up life. I have become caged by the security of my salvation and my daily quiet time and life. And yet, grace (and our faith journeys) should be anything but routine, especially when you consider the cost.

I need to shake things up. Maybe you do too. Maybe we've become numb to the enormity of the gift of grace given so freely and abundantly to us.

There are many ways to shake up your faith journey, understanding of God, and growth; I can't tell you which spiritual disciplines will work best for you. For me, it's been a series of trial and error to find the best route to spiritual growth and rooting in the Spirit. But I know our God is anything but routine, and grace should overwhelm us and bring us to our knees on a daily basis.

Thanks for the reminder, Father.