The Ragamuffin Gospel and The Furious Longing of God
Brennan Manning
If you’ve never read anything by Manning…you need to. The guy is able to get you thinking about God’s incredible love for us in ways that no else can. And I don’t mean the love of God you read about in sunday school. We’re talking an infinite, deep, resounding, abounding, poweful, gentle, fulfilling, thrilling, passionate, intense, peaceful, rushing, outside-of-the-box LOVE.
Manning speaks of God’s love in a way that penetrates my heart. When reading his thoughts and meditations, everything in me cries out, “Yes! Please! This is what I long for. Please! This is all I really want.” He writes so earnestly, so casual, that you almost don’t recognize that he is clearly communicating some of the most profound truths of the power and beauty of God’s love for His people. After reading and thinking about what Manning writes, it quickly becomes clear why our God deserves all glory, all praise and all thanks…all of the time. He is indeed good. So, so richly and deeply good. (I’m starting to feel overwhelmed right now just thinking about it all.)
I’ve also come to admire Manning for his longing and passion for just spending time in God’s presence. To just sit and listen to his Father. To take time out from life to meditate on what he hears in those times, and what he reads in scripture. He takes time to be silent, to think, to listen and to be loved. And that’s something I pray I become as passionate about.
Please, read The Ragamuffin Gospel if you haven’t. I know it’s probably cliche to recoomend it, but it really is full of incredible and gentle insight into how much we are loved (and pursued!) by our God who is madly, madly in love with us. This book has helped me to begin to understand that my identity is in my Creator, that I can never prove my love to Him, and never have to, because His love is far, far greater. It really has spoken to my heart in a deep way.
I’ll call a night by leaving you with a quote from The Furious Longing of God…
“…the Jesus I met in the grounds of my own self, has furiously loved me regardless of my state — grace or disgrace. And why? For His love is never, never, never, based on our performance, never conditioned by our moods of elation or depression. The furious love of God knows no shadow of alteration or change. It is reliable. And always tender.”
