Will Grace Win?
March 4, 2010 by Matthew Gillogly
A few weeks ago, Bob handed me a book while I was visiting in Chicago. He’s always handing me books to read as do I to him.I’ll tell you that title in a little bit. But some background first.
For the past 9 months or so, we’ve both been on similar but separate journeys in our walk with God. Bob’s has been more about the turn from legalism and a performance based God to a God who doesn’t care about how much we serve on committees at church.
For me, it’s been a bit harder to explain to the average Joe. I was raised Irish Catholic in Chicago. That in and of it’s self is has it’s own set of issues.
In grade school I had nuns who were 4 foot 1 weighed 88 pounds, carried a 35 pound cross around their neck and could beat up Mike Tyson, when Tyson was good. I didn’t fear God, I feared the nuns. God was a pushover compared to Sister Mary Catherine Elephant and her 35 pound cross.
Where God has revealed himself to me is in the land of performance for the world. For as long as I can remember, making money has never been an issue for me. In fact, for much of the past 8 years, if I needed money, I was able to create it on demand.
It was really cool.
When we moved to Charlotte, not only was I able to move into a substantially bigger house in a nicer neighborhood, I did it so my mortgage payments were the same as they were in Louisiana.
When I tired of my Ford Taurus, I sold stuff on line to buy my Acura Tl (which has since been sold to provide groceries, leaving me carless and home bound most of the day.) It took me about three days to sell $40,000 worth of stuff. Not bad!
Then one day it stopped. No longer could I create money on demand. My ability to be my own God ended and the real God showed up. This is where God has dealt with me the most. The unending question of who knows best. God or me.
For the record, he’s winning on most days. Some days I still think I know best, but in the end he shows me I don’t know crap.
Which leads me to the issue of books between Bob and I.
A few weeks ago he handed me Bo’s Cafe. It is published by the same dudes who did The Shack and have a weekly podcast called The God Journey.
It took me about 3 days to read a simple story of a successful business man who has an anger issue and is driven to be the best in work. Thank God it’s not another story about some missionary or pastor. But a real guy that I can relate to on so many levels.
Plus, it’s about a group of people who really do walk through life together, outside of a normal or traditional church setting. No Bible study’s, no speaking in tongues, just weekly meals on a seaside cafe.
This book touched me in ways that I am still grappling with and working to unravel. And over the next few weeks or months or as God allows, I’ll share more of that journey.
Part of that process will happen today. As Bob and I will interview one of the authors on our radio show/podcast. If you can join us at 10:30 AM Eastern today, you’ll be able to listen in live or chat with us. Just go to our page on BlogTalkRadio.com to listen live or catch the replay.
Thanks for reading and listening.
Matt
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It is a little disturbing to read about your disdain for those who feel Bible studies are a normal part of the Christian life. If you (and I mean you personally) are not in God’s Word on a regular basis, then you will always be a spiritually weak and anemic Christian.
Sorry, but Bo’s Cafe and the Shack are going to cut it when it comes to knowing God. So you might want to rethink your approach to knowing God.
Grace does win but the Bible is the only legitimate source of information on how the story plays out.
Carter, thanks for your post. Always refreshing to engage others in this conversation. For the record, I don’t have a distain for Bible study or for those who participate in Bible study. What I have a huge distain for is the over riding belief that it’s the only way to get to know God. Each one of us on a deeply personal journey that God meets each one of us in that journey and walks along side of us.
I like seeing how grace plays out in lives. How does grace play out in an African village destroyed by genocide, or in a home where the daughter gets into drugs and prostitution, or how the prisoner at Angola Prison in Louisiana comes to know God’s grace and lives it out in the prison yard. (He didn’t come to know Christ through a Bible study, but through someone exhibiting unconditional love, even though he was in solitary confinement for 15 years.)
And yes, how does grace, God’s grace, his true gift to us, play out at a seaside cafe with people who have their own junk? I’m not really interested in formulas or methodologies. I’m interested in relationships that are willing to share the junk and stand with each other in it.
That’s what a book like Bo’s Cafe or The Shack have done for me personally. They don’t replace my reading of the word, but they help me see the practical application of living out the fathers love for me and how Jesus wants all of us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Thank you SO much for sharing.
Love, Matt
Well thought out blog and response Matt. I have been thinking alot about the meaning of Grace lately myself. I do understand that I can’t earn my favor, that is my righteousness is as filthy rags, and yet at the same time I’m and inherited son with full access to the throne.
Like you and so many others I know, I don’t want any more methodologies or formulas or better yet theologies. I just want Him and I want the pepole around me to want and know Him. That’s how I see Grace.