Book Review: the furious longing of God

Recently, I signed up to be a reviewer for The Ooze Viral Bloggers. You can find out more about it here.

The book I received to review is Brennan Manning’s “the furious longing of God.” You can check out the foreword, intro and first chapter of the book here courtesy of David C. Cook Publishing.

I had never read anything by Manning before so I wasn’t sure what to expect from the book. What drew me to this book was the following description from the back of the book:

“Imagine a stormy day at sea, your ship yielding to a relentless wind, pummeled by crashing waves, subject to the awesome force of nature. A force that is both fierce and majestic. A power that is nothing short of furious.

Such is God’s intense, consuming love for his children. It’s a love that knows no limits, and no boundaries. A love that will go to any lengths, and take any risks, to pursue us.”

Most of the time storms are used as a metaphor for difficulties in life, and Jesus shows up to calm the storm. This is the first time I had come across someone using a stormy sea as a picture of God’s longing for us. What a picture–God’s love as something as passionate, undpredictable and dangerous as a storm at sea!

One of the overarching themes throughout the book is the fact that God loves us (and even likes us) regardless of who we are. There is nothing that can make God love us less, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. Because of that kind of reckless love, Manning calls us to abandon our “striving” to gain God’s approval and simply and recklessly love God back.

As we learn to give God our love more than anything else, Manning reminds us that then manifests itself in our love of those around us. Manning states that we are called to a ministry of healing. Now, when I read that it took me a second to put aside pictures of charismatic meetings where people are prayed for and healed of their ailments. Manning is talking about restoration. As lovers of God, we are called to give that restorative love to those around us, especially those we have deemed unlovable (and even annoying).

I was struck by the deliberateness of Manning’s choice of words throughout the book. Don’t let this book’s deceptive brevity (136 pages) lull you into thinking there is little content within it’s pages. There were many times I had to stop and reread a sentence to get the full breadth of what Manning was trying to say.

To say something like, “I thoroughly enjoyed the book” feels like a trite description for my impression of “the furious longing of God.” I was challenged, convicted and encouraged (can you be all those things at the same time?) by what Manning had to say concerning God’s love and, in turn, how I manifest that love to those around me. I highly recommend this book to people anywhere on their spiritual journey desiring to learn, grow in greater understanding of, or even be reminded of God’s furious love for his creation.