It is
my heartfelt hope and prayer that in reading this book you may:
· Understand that a life in Christ offers so much more than you currently have.
· See that Joy unspeakable and limitless wonders can be a regular and ever-increasing occurrence in your daily life.
· Find that the cost of leaving the comfy life behind is a small price to pay for the abundance and fulfillment of truly abiding in Jesus Christ.
What’s
it about?
Well,
the book:
· Documents my (average) journey from childhood and early salvation through a series of thin threads and great blessings that brought me to a point of chasing His love.
· Illustrates the miraculous encounters with the Glory of God and the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit that flows from yielding to Him.
· Relay the deep richness and ultimate sense of worth and purpose that comes from seeking Jesus with your whole heart.
Here’s
the Breakdown:
The
book is divided into four distinct parts.
1. Part I: The Comfy Life. This is the chronicle of a typical lower middle-class white kid, born in the inner city and transplanted to the suburbs. My family didn’t have much, but my parents both worked hard to give me nearly all I could want. They loved me the best they could, but they were children themselves when I was born. We weren’t a Christ-centered family, so we relied on each other. As I bounced around from sitter to sitter and saw my parent’s marriage finally fall apart, I reacted in the usual rebellious child sort of way. Still, there was a series of seemingly misplaced events that kept me loosely connected to something bigger. Though I was oblivious to God’s work in my life, He was definitely leading me somewhere.
2. Part II: The Spin Up. As a young adult, I asked the question: “What to I want to be when I grow up?” I know it’s a little late in life to ask that question, but it’s when I began to realize that things weren’t adding up. I admitted that I had simply fallen into the results of my life without really trying. My Alfred E. Newman attitude had gotten me pretty far, but I was now convicted to count my blessings. As the count went up, I grew more and more restless. The trappings of success held less and less satisfaction. I questioned if the white picket fence life was to be the pinnacle of my existence. I groped and flailed for something to alleviate the pressure building in my heart. Slowly, over the course of years, I accepted that the answer might be God.
3. Part III: The Challenge. “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded” – Luke 12:48. This scripture hunted me during this time. Through a series of teachings and events that I will illustrate in these chapters, God put the challenge in front of me. “I have more for you, do you want it?” The question is both exciting and terrifying. It was the crossroad of my life. A stifling fear of the unknown and an undeniable sense of urgency were at war within me. I was a man in conflict. What would I do?
4. Part IV: The Leap. With Reckless abandon I leapt into the arms of Christ. I chose to seek Him at all costs. And it cost me dearly. Many of those costs I’m still realizing as the journey continues today. Yet, the richness and depth of true intimacy with Jesus is beyond measure. These final chapters illustrate the miraculous, barely believable experiences of a heart on fire for Jesus Christ.