Monday, January 03, 2011

Crazy Love

I just finished book #1 of 2011, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, by Francis Chan. Many people I know have read this book lately, and when a friend gave it to me for Christmas I was curious enough to start in on it right away. It's a quick read, though well worth reading again to ponder the points Francis Chan makes.

The "crazy love" of the title refers to God's love for us, but also our love for Him, and for others. I have written before that last year I felt I started to get a glimpse of how much God really loves me. It's an amazing thought.
"The very fact that a holy, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, merciful, fair and just God loves you and me is nothing short of astonishing. The wildest part is that Jesus doesn't have to love us. His being is utterly complete and perfect, apart from humanity. He doesn't need me or you. Yet He wants us, chooses us, even considers us His inheritance (Eph. 1:18). The greatest knowledge we can ever have is knowing God treasures us. . . . The irony is that while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want Him most of the time. He treasures us and anticipates our departure from this earth to be with Him - and we wonder, indifferently, how much we have to do for Him to get by."

Chan talks about how short life is; that's something the earthquake taught me very memorably. I hope others can come to the same realization without having to be in a natural disaster. He describes what life would be like if we were truly obsessed with God; not serving Him out of duty but out of pure love, crazy love. He even gives us a chapter full of examples, and how cool is it that each person he highlights is completely different from every other?
"Imagine if you opened up a drawer in your kitchen and found twenty cheese graters but no other utensils. Not very helpful when you're looking for something to eat your soup with. Just as there are different utensils in the kitchen that serve diverse functions, God has created unique people to accomplish a variety of purposes throughout the world."

This was a great book to start out the year and I highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about living for God, even if that ends up looking crazy to other people.

This book made me think of Steven Curtis Chapman's song "Something Crazy." Here it is:

1 comment:

Jessica Stock said...

I have had this in my amazon cart for a while now- I think I'll order it thanks for the recommendation