Review -- Finding God

Finding God
Larry Crabb

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I recently rediscovered my copy of Finding God as I was searching through my book boxes for another book. One of the first lines I read was a quotation from George MacDonald: "Did the fact ever cross your mind that you are here in this world just to understand the Lord Jesus, and for no other reason?" I had always heard that the chief end of Man was to glorify God (and enjoy Him forever), which seemed a bit narcissistic of God. Of course, if anyone can be narcissistic, God can. But here was a book that seemed to agree with my doubts about God's narcissism. Indeed, this quotation could summarize the entire book, which builds on the ideas behind the question.

Crabb's thesis is that our fundamental sin is doubting God. Empirically, the world is full of pain. Brothers die in plane crashes, children are abused by parents, godly women are brutally raped, parents accidentally back over their young child. More than anything, we want the pain to go away, but clearly God isn't going to do it for us. If you look at the world, you would have to conclude that God either does not exist or He does not care, and this is the message that our souls have absorbed. So, since God obviously cannot be trusted to fix the problem, we turn to other people to relieve the pain. But we are all selfishly using each other (in varying degrees) to relieve our own pain; we each have nothing to give. When that fails, then we hate them for not giving us what we want. If others can't satisfy us, maybe the problem is ourselves--if we were really better people, then people would love us. Thus, we use self-loathing to explain others' failure to love us (particularly when children realize that their parents do not love them the way they should--if you can't get love from your parents, who is left?). That still leaves us with our pain, so we devise a style of relating to people that minimizes the chance for them to hurt us, or we discover something that makes us feel good (eating, alcohol, or sexual fantasies, for instance) and become addicted to it.

(Of course, not everyone follows quite the same path. I think I substituted seeking satisfaction from people with satisfaction by personal projects (probably not surprising for an introvert), got upset with God when it didn't work, and skipped right to trying to figure out how to get it to work. Even so, his description is applicable in some not too different form for all of us, and his comments are always insightful.)

The problem, then, is not our addiction, or our self-serving style of relating. The problem is that we doubt that God is good. God has not promised the Christian that He will give us everything we want. Can we believe that God is good, anyway? That He has a reason for running the Universe the way that He does, and that, because the ending is more glorious than we can possibly imagine, He will not change how He runs the Universe, although he is deeply saddened when we doubt Him? Can we believe that God himself is enough, even if our pain never goes away? Because ultimately God made us to have a relationship with Him, not to give us a pain-free existence (although that was His desire). When we want to get rid of our pain more than we want to know God, we are committing the cardinal sin. Everything else is just a consequence of wanting to relieve the pain.

One way to address our pain is to ignore it. Christians live joyful lives; we are Christian, therefore we should practice being joyful. This will only cause us to paper over deep problems. Another way is to obey God, but obedience cannot create a relationship. In fact, obedience without a relationship will result in stone-cold Pharisees. The modern counseling strategy would have us explore our pain and understand it. Which is good, but because it does not address our sin of doubting that God is good, we cannot be healed through it. Much of modern Christianity suggests that if do more "holy" things (like Bible study, praying, or serving in the church), or if we follow certain steps we will find God. But God reveals Himself when He wants to, and He certainly will not reveal Himself if what we really want is freedom from pain, instead of wanting Himself.

The solution Crabb offers is to realize that our problem is that we doubt God and seek after Him with all of our heart. "We find God to the degree that we want to find him. Until our passion for finding God exceeds all other passions, ... we will not find him as deeply as he longs to be found." We will never be free from pain; in fact, Crabb's experience is that the pain may actually get worse, from time to time, as God shows us how much we really doubt Him. We need to give up our desire to get rid of our pain and focus on knowing God. Only then can we have the kind of joy that trusts that God is good, even though our pain is still with us, and that, one day, when He has finished preparing us, we will live with Him in Heaven the way we were meant to.

Until then, Crabb offers some suggestions on how we should live. Most importantly, we need to seek God, not relief from pain. We need to develop a confidence that God really is good, because until then we will be ruled by our bad passions. The solution is not more prayer or Bible study, nor is it exploring our pain (although those things are good), but more knowing God. Another thing we can do is examine ourselves to see how our style of relating seeks to minimize pain. Crabb gives the example of Christine, who was shy and sweet, always demurring to others, but in reality shutting others out, never opening herself to others because that way she could not be hurt. Crabb also suggests that (when the time is appropriate) we tell each other how we doubt God. We need to disturb each other, to stir up the mud of our doubt; seeing our doubts will give us a desire to seek God and trust Him more.

This is a book about pain, but also one borne of pain. It came about when Crabb's brother died in a plane crash, plunging him into deep pain and grief, at which point he realized that he could not go on living without knowing God. Crabb does not just talk about pain, he shows the reader what pain is, through many, often heartbreaking, examples. This is the most honest book that I think I have read--Crabb neither hides nor glosses over pain. His explanation of our problem is deeply convicting, the more so because he has established himself as credible in his understanding of what the reader's pain is. (Whatever our pain is, it might be equal to, but not greater than his examples) He has obviously thought about the problem, and his answers, while simple in concept, are not simplistic; instead, they have that undefinable ring of truth to them. And while he does not always cite scripture in support of his arguments (although with a greater frequency than my initial impression), his answers are clearly congruent with the theme of scripture.

This might be one of the few books for which there is a pre-requisite, however. I read the book with my small group about four years ago, and I remember exactly nothing from that time. Yet on this reading, practically every page convicted me in a new way. The difference may be that, in-between, I read Inside Out (also by Larry Crabb). I have a feeling that I may have missed something, but the main point I took away from that book was that we need to realize what our pain is. I took his advice, found that I did have pain (in my case it was more like deep unhappiness or dissatisfaction) in my life, and gained a good understanding of what it was. But then I realized, now what do I do? Perhaps the pre-requisite for this book is that we need to understand that we have pain. If we are in denial or if maybe it has not occurred to us that we have pain in our lives, then perhaps the book will not affect us.

Having read Finding God, I now find myself in a similar position as after reading Inside Out. Then, I felt unsure about where my realization of unhappiness was supposed to lead. Now I am unsure about how to seek God. Admittedly, there are no formulae, and if this question had a tractable answer, it would have been given long ago, but his suggestions, which consist mostly of self-examination and discussion of how our doubt works into our lives, seem kind of weak in the pursuing God area. In particular, they do not answer the question of how to build a relationship with someone whom you cannot see, who often takes a long time to respond, and about whom you must often learn second-hand, through the writings of others. Crabb states that prayer or Bible reading are not solutions in themselves, but does not say what their proper role is. He says that obedience will not create a relationship with God, but yet, Chuck Colson, in Loving God (and, indeed, Jesus at the Last Supper), observes that obedience is how we show our love. What does someone who is seeking after God look like? What do they do with their devotional time? How do they view the world differently? Ultimately it is God's responsibility to change hearts, but surely free will requires that we have some part to play, too.

Regardless, this is the most personal and convicting book I have read. It challenges the foundation of my thought like nothing else has, and showed me what Christianity is all about. Christianity is about sin, to be sure, but, ultimately, Christianity is about seeking after God more than anything else, because that is what we were made to do. Finding God requires you to either change to be more like God or write off what Crabb says. And if it does not give a very clear direction of the next step, perhaps it is because Crabb himself has not yet fully experienced it yet. Finding God reveals Crabb with a more complete understanding of the nature of pain and sin than in Inside Out, so maybe a few more years in God's care will produce Seeking God.

[June 2008: Edward Welch in When People are Big and God is Small notes that Crabb subscribes to the leaky-cup philosophy, that we are leaky cups who need to be filled. The Christian version of this is that we need to be filled with God. However, Welch notes that our most of our "needs" are really "lusts" and can never be filled. The answer that Welch gives, that we should seek to love more and be loved less, that we should seek to be outward focused like God, seems similar to Crabb's, but is more satisfying because we are no longer expecting our needs to be filled. Instead we are about the tasking of imaging God, and in the process, He will fill us with His love so that we overflow to others.]

Review: 9.0

This is not an academic book, but clearly Crabb has a deep understanding of human nature. This is a personal book, written in a personal style, with examples from his counseling patients that show the depth of what pain can be. Yet, he does not just show pain, but reveals the problem and as much of a solution as one can have. This book convicts and enlightens on every page. In terms of writing alone it will not stand the test of time, but the content is timeless and desperately needed. The only reason this book would not be a best-seller is if we really wanted to cover up our pain, rather than discover the God to whom our pain should cause us to run to.

[Dec. 2005: Changed from 10.0 to 9.0, because Philip Yancey's Disappointment with God, which covers the same material is both much better written (Crabb does not clearly express himself, and one has to read his books twice--the first time to figure out what he is saying and the second time to understand it) and goes further. However, while Disappointment with God has more answers Finding God is a much more convicting book. It is written from pain and the message that we need to seek God's goodness rather than relief from pain is unmistakeable. Read Finding God first, to be convicted, and then Disappointment with God for understanding.]

Notes

Chapter 1: A Personal Journey

Crabb's older brother died when his plane crashed, killing all 25. Crabb was seized with deep pain and grief, and realized that he simply could not go on without knowing God.

Chapter 2: There's More to Life than Merely Living

Hebrews 11 gives the example of Enoch as living by faith to please God.
All the people in the genealogy along with Enoch lived x years, but Enoch walked with God.
Our goal is to try to recover as much of the Garden of Eden as we can

"Our agenda is to fix the world until it can properly take care of us. God's agenda is to bring all things together in Christ until every knee bows before him" (34)
God cursed Cain to be a wanderer, but Cain tried to avoid his sentence by settling down and building a city.

"Whenever we place a higher priority on solving our problems than on pursuing God, we are immoral." (38)
"The battle my friend faces is to believe that God is worthy to be trusted even though he did not prevent his wife from committing suicide, his daughter from becoming bulimic and promiscuous, and his son from taking drugs. If he loses this battle, my friend will be far more offended by how bad things have turned out in his life than by his unholy demand for happiness. If he wins this battle, he will be freed from trying to salvage some happiness from the rubble of his life and freed to devote himself to God's purposes and to discover--if only in glimpses--the meaning of real joy." (38)
"The question we need to ask ourselves is this: Are we merely living or are we walking with God?" (41)
"We must learn what it means to come to God, believing that he is good when life doesn't show it, knowing that he graciously rewards honest seekers even when their souls ache relentlessly." (42)

Chapter 3: Natural Passions

It is natural and not wrong to be passionate about our well-being, unless we are not more passionate about God.
"Until we are chasing after God like a thirsty deer after water, pursuing him with more passion than we pursue a new home, parental approval, or kids who makes us proud [or any other way of assuaging our pain], this world fits us well. We're conformed to its values [of trying to build our own paradise]. Our citizenship is here." (45)
We must be concerned about glorifying God and enjoying Him, rather than satisfying ourselves.
The world either tells us to be good, or to be happy. We either agree or rebel, leading us to be conformists (either trying to be what other people think is good or conforming to a safe, legalistic structure to avoid dealing with the world) or indulgers (either trying to satisfy our desires or rejecting others' definition of good and finding ourselves).
Both approaches are self-oriented; we need to change to be God oriented.

Chapter 4: Supernatural Passion

"To every Christian, the Holy Spirit reveals just enough about God to support the next level of personal honesty. If we choose to face the difficult realities the Holy Spirit enables us to face, he then grants a fuller vision of God that permits the process to continue. If we turn from those realities, refusing to believe that God can keep us intact no matter what pain we feel, the Spirit is quenched. He reveals no more of God to us. Part of our job then, if we are to find God, is to look honestly at those disturbing realities about ourselves and life--realities that could destroy all our joy unless God gives us hope." (54)
There are three stages in this process:

An awareness that: "our deepest longings are incurable" (we will only be satisfied when we can fully know God), that we know of a few people whose life shows that knowing God is possible, "we are inescapably selfish", "that the Holy Spirit is a person that works in our lives", and that "suffering is inevitable".
Our pain immobilizes us, so that we realize that we cannot go on without God.
Then we become alert to the voice of God.

This is a cycle; we won't become alert to God and then always stay that way.

Chapter 5: Something Is Seriously Wrong

Increased knowledge of self rarely leads to knowing God better.
It seems like we are not progressing in our walk with God--we still have the same sins, same tendencies, same problems as we had twenty five years ago. The problem is that we have a fallen way of thinking about God. (Chapters 7, 10 - 14)

Chapter 6: When God Won't Let Us Find Him

If we judge by what we see in our world, God is pretty indifferent. There seems to be little correlation between faithfulness and blessing.
Sometimes life brings problems to which there appears to be no good in them, just bad.
We sometimes wants answers from God more than we want God Himself.
"[Perhaps] many problems may not be resolved till heaven and that perhaps many were not meant to be resolved until then." (80)
We can deal with this in three ways:

Ignore it: Convince ourselves that we are joyful like Christians should be. Look more for doctrinal accuracy in a church than in people struggling with questions they cannot answer.

This approach assumes that we can make ourselves solve our fallennes by will.

Counseling: Try to heal our pain away. Focus on discovering yourself, your addictions and need for healing.

This approach is just another form of selfishness.

Admit that the way we relate to God is fundamentally wrong.

Chapter 7: The Foundation of the Fallen Structure: Doubting God

Eve's sin was concluding that God was holding out on her (namely the forbidden tree). Adam was not deceived; his sin was that he did not trust God was good enough to somehow redeem his sinful wife.
Our fundamental sin is that we doubt God is good enough for <blank>.
We tell God to prove his goodness and then we'll trust (e.g. Job 23). But this is effectively challenging God, which he gets upset about.
"Sin may be thought of as our effort to supplant what we think are limits to God's goodness. It is trusting our self instead of trusting God." (89)
Crabb observes a similarity between our culture's obsession with self (specifically in the "find yourself" thinking in counseling) and the terrible last times that Paul talks about in 2 Timothy 3 where men will be lovers of themselves.

Chapter 8: Why God Won't Let Us Find Him

"The fallen personality structure within each of us is based on one central lie: God cannot be trusted with the things that matter most. We thank him for opening up a parking space in a crowded lot, but we cannot trust him with our souls." (95)
Crabb illustrates our fallen structure of thinking by illustrating a decision he needed to make. Both were equally good (but momentous), and he had not heard anything from God on the matter. He found himself wondering if he should fast on that particular day, then wondering what good it would do. Implicit was an assumption that fasting somehow obligated God to respond--he might not, but he should.
In Isaiah 58:2-4, Ezekiel 8:18, and Hosea 7:14 God specifically says that he will cover his ears and not listen to the Israelites, because they are coming to him with the attitude that God owes them a response.

Likewise, he will refuse to listen to us if we come to him requiring that he prove himself before we will trust him.
"If we are to find God as he wants to be found, ... then we must no work primarily to solve our problems. Instead, we must work to dismantle our fallen structure, replacing the foundation of doubt with a rock-solid trust in God.

Chapter 9: The Foundation of a Solid Structure: Trusting God

If we want to find God, we need to be prepared for a bloody revolution within ourselves.
We can only replace the sinful structure with a godly one when the following have been met:

"We must be willing to endure internal suffering without knowing when it will end and without the ability to arrange for its relief. We must endure what will seem like the loss of life.
"We must enter that suffering to an unendurable level where every pleasure that brought relief and comfort no longer does so. ... The pleasures of sin must lose their power to relieve our pain.
"We must plead with God's Spirit to answer our cry for mercy by exposing our fallen structure as dangerously evil.
"We must plead with God's Spirit to reveal the sheer beauty of the character of Christ until the opportunity to know him, and to reflect him to others becomes the stabilizing anchor during life's toughest storms." (100-101)

If we just focus on having good actions (drink less, don't give away too much time, be happier with yourself, etc.) we won't face the problems underneath that are the root causes.
"You know you're finding God when you believe that God is good no matter what happens." (103)

This means memories of abuse, losing loved ones to an untimely death, unrelenting loneliness, etc.
"If left to our own way of thinking, every one of us would conclude that God either is bad or doesn't exist." (105)
"Finding God is developing, through Christ, an unshakable confidence in God's absolute goodness and perfect love no matter what we may experience in this life." (106)
But God will only reveal Himself to us when we stop using him to solve our problems.

Imagine what it would be like to fully trust God:

"You no longer doubt, but believe in his goodness.
"You no longer feel terror, but feel calm at his words: [I will never leave you. There will be trouble, but there will be a happy ending].
"You no longer feel rage, but want to worship." (106-7)
Imagine being able to truly mean: (italics are Crabb's rephrasing)
"Though the fig tree does not bud and I am alone;
and there are no grapes on the vines and I can find no joy in my world right now;
though the olive crop fails and I have nothing to soothe my open wounds;
and the fields produce no food, and I'm out of a job or hate the one I have;
though there are no sheep in the pen and no one warms me on cold nights
and no cattle in the stalls and I have no tangible basis for feeling secure,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and enables me to go on the heights. (Hab. 3:17-19)"

Chapter 10: First Floor: I Need You

If we doubt that God will provide us what we need, then we expect other people to provide it.
Manipulating others to get what we want is co-dependency.
Two ways of relating: what others can do for us or what we can do for others. The latter is a healthy relationship.
If we trust God, we are freed to walk this world without fear--we are better protected than the president.
The transformation from being someone consumed with ourself to someone who wants to give to others is God's work.

Chapter 11: Second Floor: I Hate You

If we expect other people to solve our pain by giving us what we need, then we get angry at them when they do not.
This anger generally manifests itself silently. Getting upset with someone for being late because it disrupts the orderliness that helps us keep out the pain. Resentment at a husband who give outward encouragement but never explorers his wife's pain.

But finding the anger is not enough. We need to realize that we are angry because other people are not providing what only God can provide, and we aren't asking God because we don't trust Him.

Chapter 12: Third Floor: I Hate Me

We use self-hatred or self-loathing to protect against the realization that no one is ever going to love us the way we want them to. So we begin to think that there is something wrong with us; that's why people don't love us. And we set about fixing it. (Of course, the problem is that we are selfish and don't trust God, but we don't think about that)
For example, children whose parents don't love them see the fault lying with them, because if it weren't their fault, then if the people who should be loving them, their parents, aren't, who will? Finding fault with themselves helps avoid that terrifying reality.
So the blame gets put on something that we can correct, and it's back to a works based salvation--if I can only fix this, then I will be truly happy--instead of coming to God with our disappointments.
Instead, we should judge ourselves honestly, admitting that we have completely failed and cannot do it ourselves. We would see our sin, but realize that God has forgiven us for it. Our assessment would not be guilt-bringing, but reveal where we need to grow.
"Suppose we looked at ourself-hatred not merely as a painful burden to be overcome but as a devious strategy to keep alive our hope that life would work if we could only do better. And then, once we recognized the unnecessary pressure created by that strategy, suppose we saw ourselves not merely as self-hating victims who need affirmation, but as God-doubters who wrongly demand that others come through for us. If we saw our wicked, stubborn violation of God's design, then we would value the cross as the place where God, through his Son, took on our sins and forgave us. And we would see that he continues to forgive us every day of our lives until the day when there will be nothing left to forgive." (131)

Chapter 13: Fourth Floor: I Will Survive

"When desires become final goals, we chase after them with a fanatic zeal that not only blurs moral boundaries but also drains us of energy for pursuing anything else. We forget our higher calling." (133)
"No matter what you do, it will have no real value until you are more committed to knowing the Lord than straightening our whatever is wrong in your life." (135)
We want solutions to our problems, but we need to seek God first. (This is partly because if there is always a solution to everything, it implies that we can do it ourselves)
We tend to think that blessed are those who can rely on themselves. Crabb observes that God's last words to Israel were rebuke for this very thing and that when Christ came after 400 years of silence, the first official thing he said was blessed are the poor in spirit.
Instead we need to realize that "when it comes to the currency that can buy life, I am utterly broke." (141) We need to trust God to supply everything we need to deal with the problem. But we naturally fall back on our talents when the going gets tough.
"For years, I've been told that I think well. Perhaps my ability to move about in the world of abstract thought has become my god. some years back, I fell on concrete, hit my head, and suffered a concussion. For the first half hour in the emergency room, I was delirious. Over and over again, I shouted, "I'll never be able to think again!" Was I mourning the death of my god?" (141)

Chapter 14: Fifth Floor: Here's How I Will Survive

"With the determination to survive comes the requirement to figure out how. More than anything else, we were built to relate. So quite naturally, the first order of business for fallen people is to develop a strategy for relating to others that will win from them whatever nourishment they can provide and keep us safe from their power to destroy us." (143)
So we create a style of relating that protects ourselves.
For Christine it was being sweet and shy, seeming to value others' opinions more than herself, but really a way of deflecting others' interest in who she was. For Dana, it was overdone praise designed to get people to like her, rather than to actually praise them.
"Suppose she understood that [God's] goodness is most fully revealed at the cross, where God solved her biggest problem." (147)

Chapter 15: Darkness Before Light

This chapter is mostly a journal entry from a particularly dark time. He described like he is falling into the blackness, but not knowing if this is just another bounce against the wall or the fatal fall onto the floor. He then discovers that he sees himself as apart from the pain, and that there is another Person there (in a similar description that C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity uses). The question is, is the Person bad or good? And he finds himself certain that the Person is good, and wonders what He will do with someone who questions that. The answer is: die for them.
We must do three things: admit how we have failed others, admit how others have failed us, and admit that we do not fully trust God.

Chapter 16: Mistakes People Make

"We find God by developing a confidence in his character that frees us to rest, to stop struggling to make like work as we want it to, to no longer demand specific proofs of his goodness." (161)
We often make two mistakes:

Moving around our problems (i.e. ignoring them)

"Telling a man struggling with homosexual urges or a woman battling bulimia to engage in more God-centered activities is going around their problems. Spending more time in Bible study and dropping to our knees more frequently in prayer sometimes helps us avoid the very realities of life that, if faced, could meaningfully drive us to God." (161)
We can't just look at our obvious behavioral problems, but at the causes beneath them

Getting absorbed in our problems: feeling the pain caused by our parents, those who hurt us, etc. and deciding that we cannot love others until we love ourselves first.

Chapter 17: Our Good Passions Are Too Weak

"We find God to the degree that we want to find him. Until our passion for finding God exceeds all other passions, ... we will not find him as deeply as he longs to be found." (167)
"The core problem with most of us ... is not that we are too passionate about bad things [e.g. lust, etc.], but that we are not passionate enough about good things." (169)
Addictions are not solved by trying to resist them or weaken them, but by finding that the good passions are better--then we don't think of it as giving up something good, but pursuing something better.
There are a lot of Christian formulas for responsible living, but following Biblical stewardship in money does not always solve the problem. We need to understand that when we live as God wants us to, sometimes we will be blessed (i.e. it "works") and sometimes it doesn't, but that God is still trustworthy.
"When unexpected problems develop that cannot be explained by an earlier failure, we lose confidence in our ability to keep our lives together. We sink in a deep mire where trust in God is our only option. Perhaps that explains why true passion for God grows best in the dark." (174)
"As we struggle through the problems of life, the most important question we can ask is not, 'How can I solve my problems?' but rather, 'How can I develop a burning passion for knowing Christ that will overwhelm all other passions and reduce them to secondary concerns?'" (174)

Chapter 18: The Nature of Good and Bad Passions: Toward Disrupting the Bad and Releasing the Good

"Bad passions run deep"

We discover something that gives us a thrill of joy, so we pursue it to relieve our pain, but we become addicted to it.

"We will be ruled by bad passions until we develop confidence in God's goodness." (178)

"Noble passions lie dormant in every Christian"
"Bad passions disguise themselves as good passions"

For example, the husband who has tried everything to revive a cold marriage may say "there's nothing left but prayer" instead of the more difficult task of continuing to love his wife, even if she doesn't respond.

"Bad passions are often more sensual, but noble passions are more appealing."

Chapter 19: Telling Our Stories

[Crabb describes some heartbreaking tragedies.] "Sometimes it's hard to know what God is doing. He informs us that he withholds nothing good from his children. I take that to mean that there is nothing that perfect goodness coupled with absolute power should be doing that isn't being done--right now! Yet I still do battle with a problem I hate. Anna's husband continues to chew up her heart. The ache in the widow's heart remains. The abused woman can't sleep. A physician will glumly tell someone you love, 'There's nothing I can do.' A young man, when he learns his fiancee has been sexually abused, will say, 'I don't think it's God's will that I marry you.' Another Christian leader--this time one you really believed in--will have an affair. We all rage at God, demanding he do more than he is doing. He remains quietly unthreatened, saddened beyond words that we think him cruel or indifferent, but unswervingly committed to the course he has set. He refuses to redesign the plot of the book, having already written the last chapter and knowing that the ending is very, very good, and that every thread in our story is necessary to that conclusion." (186)
Instead of solving the problems, God calls for us to come to know him, to know that He really is good, and through our trust in his goodness, be able to walk through the pain with joy.
We need to tell the story of our fears and our doubt of God to each other. Not only will this build intimacy with others, but it will encourage each other to seek God more closely.
"If there aren't times when the very foundations of our relationships are torn away and we continue on only because of Christ, we are not building strong relationships." (192)

Chapter 20: Stories that Disrupt and Entice

"You must tell your present story, the tale of your current relationships, partly to uncover the subtlety and extent of your self-centeredness. Look for self-centeredness in the motives behind your jokes, criticisms, opinions, and silences. As others what your impact is on them as you relate together. Be open to admitting self-serving themes in your patterns of relating. ... Now, when you are aware of your self-centeredness ... you will seek God with more of your heart." (200 - 201)
Tell your inside story: how you learned you needed to protect yourself, and how you have and continue to go about it. "As you expose your demanding spirit, you will soon experience a passion to rest, to make no demands because you trust the one in charge." (203)
"You must tell the deepest story of your life, the tale of suspicion, terror, and rage that emerges from your attitude toward God."

"What difference does God's love make in your life?" Are you confident in God's care of you even though He gives you no guarantees? Even though you were born into a terrible family? (204)
"Are you grateful for God's help as you face difficult decisions in life?" Do you have a problem fact that God leads us but still expects us to make courageous decisions, or are you fine with it? "Are you resting in the confidence that somehow God is always at work in your life? Or does the story of a friend of yours, who prayed for wisdom then made a decision that led to great suffering, unnerve you a bit?" (205)
"Are you trusting in God's power to heal in spite of deep wounds that still remain in your soul? ... Which offends you more--your ongoing pain, or your ongoing sin? Which do you value more--healing or forgiveness?" (205)
"Has God revealed himself to you in a way that, at least for a moment, made sin unthinkable and utterly unattractive?" (206)

The struggle will always continue, and sometimes the pain will be severe. But God will reveal Himself, and those moments will carry you through. "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD." (Jer. 29:13)

Chapter 21: Coming Home Again

"Christ" is what God says when we ask for revelations about Himself. Christ is God's complete revelation to us; there is nothing more to say.
It is good to spend some time exploring the dark, dusty, expansive attic of our pain, but we can't get lost up there; we need to spend most of our time in the living room with Christ.