One such writer is Brennan Manning.
My heart has been heavy upon hearing of the passing away of this sweet and brilliant man. I have been moved by his ability to see past false pretenses, religious regulations and personal excuses to the person God sees. I have been challenged to trust in the unrelenting, passionate love God has for me, beyond any kind of knowing I can ever comprehend.
Brennan was a voice of grace and mercy spoken in the midst of seminary professors and scholars. In my reading of a myriad of theology and "Christian-living" books written by other contemporary authors, the distinction of Brennan was his simplicity and grace. He did not get caught up in the apologetic approach of nit-picking every tiny detail and arguing angles and cases to every possible Biblical doctrine imaginable. Instead, he stayed simple. He remained true. He reflected Jesus.
I had a dream almost a year ago. I was in a city and there was some kind of war or crisis going on around me. People were running and very afraid. I remember looking around for a leader, someone older, to whom I could ask what was happening, or what I should be doing. What I recognized, instead, was that everyone around me was younger than myself. I began having people approach me with questions I did not know the answers to. From deep within me a groan and ache rose up and I realized those people, resources and connections I lean on (too much as a crutch perhaps) were gone. It was simply me. What was I going to tell these people? What words of wisdom or encouragement could I give them?
When I woke up, I began reflecting on my life. The "horror" of life ticking on and continuing to loose such sweet, contemplative authors, like Brennan, left me with an anxious feeling that I needed to, somehow, step up my game - grow up, if you will - and be ready for that time when I am needed.
The dream mostly became a memory that every so often is brought to the surface as our world looses great spiritual giants of our time. I do not read too many contemporary authors, nor do I visit Christian bookstores. I cannot stomach personal agendas and self-gratifying stories that preach about how to have a happy life and do not point to the redemption and love of our Father. The many authors we have left in our world tend to focus on steps to a better life; more money, more happiness, more fame...the better you.
In reality, our world is broken. People are hurting and hopeless. While our culture does cry out for peace and happiness, setting people up, under the disguise of Christianity, and offering them steps toward happiness without any realities of pain and suffering in our world will only lead these lost sheep further away from the love of God, from whom all our suffering and sorrow can be healed!
On Brennan Manning's homepage, his family has posted a quote:
"Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever."
I am deeply saddened to hear about the loss of someone whom I feel is my friend. His writings have drawn me into his world, in particular, Abba's Child, The Furious Longing of God and The Ragamuffin Gospel, have unfolded the depth of God's love for me in a way that I will forever be grateful and broken me out of the religious duties I thought I had to fulfill.
With great caution, I look forward into an unknown future and can only hope and pray that God will continue to raise men and women who reflect the very heart of God in word and deed. I am in all honesty scared as to what is to come as more and more of our precious generation of fathers and mothers leave us and rest in the hands of Abba Himself.
God, challenge those of us with work yet to do, to pick up and continue forward with these mantles of faith, hope and love. May we preach the gospel of grace and always remember the sinner is Your precious child.
Thank you, Brennan, for teaching me grace.
A few of my favorite quotes:
"To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary."
"The wild, unrestricted love of God is not simply an inspiring idea. It determines why and at what time you get up in the morning, how you pass your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, and who you hang with; it affects what breaks your heart, what amazes you, and what makes your heart happy."
(This one is fun!)
"In retrospect, my ponderous ponderings on the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stage of my spiritual life, my assiduous search for shortcuts to holiness, my preoccupation with my spiritual pulse and my fasts, mortifications and penances have wrought pseudobliss and the egregious delusion that I was securely ensconced in the seventh mansion of spiritual perfection." (ha! ha! - I have "love it" next to this quote!)
"I believe that only a person who has actually experienced God (a mystic) would dare to pray with such boldness."
"The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is His greatest single act of unwavering trust in His Abba's love. He (Jesus) plunged into the darkness of death, not fully knowing what awaited Him, confident that somehow, some way, His Abba would vindicate Him."
"'Abba, I Belong To You.' It's a prayer of exactly seven syllables, the number that corresponds perfectly to the rhythm of our breathing. As you inhale - Abba. As you exhale- I belong to You."
"The foundation of the furious longing of God is the Father who is the originating Love, the Son who is the full self-expression of that Love, and the Spirit who is the original and inexhaustible activity of that Love, drawing the created universe into itself."
"Jesus came not only for those who skip morning meditations, but also for real sinners, thieves, adulterers, and terrorists, for those caught up in squalid choices and failed dreams."
"The love of God cannot be tamed, boxed, captivated, housebroken, or templebroken. It is simply and startlingly Jesus, the effulgence of the Father's love."
