wild goose chase II

so, i just finished mark batterson's second book, wild goose chase. i blogged about it back a few weeks ago when i had just started it (if you can remember back that far)... there were many victories within my experience of this book. it really came at a perfect time for me...

i'm a learner. i really dig getting into a book and bulldozing my way through it and then moving on to the next. this is alright in certain settings. however, when reading a book about spiritual formation or the things of God, this method is really detrimental to the overall experience and purpose! this thought had never occurred to me until recently. God revealed to me, through His word and some key conversations with my small group, that i was really getting nothing out of these books when i was reading them. they were really just another thing i was DOING to make myself feel better. that sucks. so, i committed to my small group that i was going to start taking my time reading through spiritual literature and the Bible. wild goose chase is the first major victory that i've experienced since God granted me this insight.

the more i really dove into the words of this book, the more God revealed to me his grace in my shortcomings. *this is kind of interesting, because God's grace is not an explicit topic in the book. however, batterson speaks much of how his failures have led him to the exact place that God wanted him and that without those failures (i.e. the failed church plant, giving up his basketball scholarship), he never would have gotten to where God was wanting him to go. THERE IS SO MUCH FREEDOM IN THAT.

many times, i look back on my life, and i just see failure after failure. missed opportunities. selfish goals. pride. but now, i think i'm really starting to understand that His strength is made perfect in my weakness. and that he chose to use the foolish things on this earth to shame the wise. *i want to be one of those foolish things.

so, let's chase after God really hard. and fail. and keep chasing. and fail again. God is using my every failure to get me to where He wants me, and more importantly, He is using everything to mold me into the man that he dreams of me becoming.

it took me an entire month to read this book. thank God for these small victories.