The beautiful and terrifying love of God.
If there were ever a perfect book to read before bed every night to put your mind at ease, it would be the Furious Longing of God. And by this, I don’t mean it’s some fluff piece to make us feel good in that shallow and guilt-reducing way. This book is a book about how God loves you, plain and simple. Brennan Manning, however, has managed to take the love of God out of the gift section at your local Christian retail store and put it on full display for everyone to see.
He shines a light into the depths of God’s love so that the reader does not just feel better about themselves but forgets themselves completely.
In one chapter of this book, Manning makes a remark about how many Christian authors complain about his simple focus on the love of God and nothing else. Their complaint is exactly why this book has such a prominent impact. Yes, the love of God is not His only attribute, but it is the very thing that will change you from the inside out.
The love of God is so provoking, irresistible, hard-to-understand and above all the single thing that can fill a person’s empty soul.
Manning reveals a seldom-stated truth of how many of us have a longing for God and an aversion to God at the same time. We seek Him while we also flee from Him. We ask for His blessings while ignoring His restraints. We long to desire God alone and then greedily grasp at everything the world offers to us. We are fine with going to church every Sunday and observing the “moral code” of a Christian lifestyle, but we don’t have a love affair with Jesus. Like many of God's other attributes, the things that are beautiful often strike fear/disgust/worry into the heart of even the most secure believer.
So, how do you respond to the love of God? How does your love for God feel different from your love for everyone and everything else? And finally, are you truly embracing the enormity of the love of God?
When you start this book you may ask yourself, “Who am I to be loved so perfectly by the most powerful Being in existence?” Then, if you’re like me, when you finish this book you might just realize that it isn’t who YOU are that matters, but who HE is. Who God is remains the only thing that has ever mattered, and the only thing that ever will.