Tim King: Furious Pursuit, Why God Will Never Let You Go

A couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail from someone I knew not pitching something I'd not read or heard about.  I nearly deleted it frankly especially when the e-mailer identified himself as a fellow sojourner.  I equate sojourner with Jim Wallis and, as regular readers will know, Mr. Wallis makes me wretch.

But I digress.

Tim King, the e-mailer, wanted me to read his new book and perhaps blog about it.  I've done this sort of thing before and recognize it as a marketing strategy and again, nearly deleted the e-mail. But there was a link to Tim's blog and so I checked it out and came to this dated post:

Today is our "freedom" Friday and how good it is to be free.

Presently there's a lot of "stuff" going on in the religious world out here in Colorado Springs. If you read the papers or watch TV you know that a prominent leader in the church who serves as the head of the National Association of Evangelicals is in a mess and has just resigned.

I'm prayerfully optimistic that no matter how all of this shakes out, that the church will use this opportunity to reaffirm that the greatest story ever told is just that because it isn't about any of us -- it's only about God.

Jesus didn't give his life for the "smaller, cleaner" sins of our lives. The shame he bore was on behalf of the worst of the worst. And it would help us all if we realized that that's exactly what often dwells within us.

More times than not my life has been an example of what "not" to be. But at least God can be glorified even in that. My (our) struggle demonstrates that God knew what he was doing when he prepared a way to unite us together in spite of ourselves. And I guess it's that message that most gives me freedom on this Friday.

How can we possibly comprehend the love of God for such a messed up people? I'm not sure, but I know this -- when I try to recover that, I am filled with a sense of awe and wonder and gratefulness that I am, indeed, redeemed.

That, and some of Tim King's other posts, made me think that reading the book might be worthwhile.  So I wrote him back, said I'd read the book and try to blog about it.  Lo and behold, it showed up over the weekend. 

Since I've not read the whole thing yet I hesitate to say too much but what I've read so far I've enjoyed.  More than enjoyed.  It's resonated.  We'll see where it goes but it's certainly something I look forward to finishing and frankly, that's a feeling I've not had about a book in a while.  In fact, I'm cutting my blogging off a tad early so I can get into it a bit more before nodding off.

So chow ciao*... and stay tuned...

*Thanks MarcV

Comments

[Marc V]

I look forward to seeing your review. I pray that it will inspire you to draw closer to the Lord.

Where would we be but for God's grace? We beat ourselves up for the sins and shortcomings in our lives, yet the Lord is ready to help us back up, brush off the dirt of the world, and lead us to the path of righteousness.

[PS I try not to be nit-picky, since I make plenty of mistakes on my own site, but the word you are looking for at the end of your post is "ciao"(with an accent over the "i"?), Italian for bye. "Chow" is related to eating or a breed of dog. Unless you were going to get something to eat at the end of your post :-)]

[Leslie]

From reading his bio he sounds very uplifting. He's even an avid motorcyclist!

I know what you mean about the word sojourner...but a sojourner who talks about sin has to approach the word with a humble spirit.

[Tim King]

Hey I'm glad to see you're starting to get into the book... and I know what you mean about almost deleting it as another slick marketing ploy! It's so hard to be authentic via technology -- the only thing I find more difficult is trying to re-cast the idea of our pursuing God as, in reality, his pursuing us. New or fresh ideas do not always get much of a wide hearing in our religious circles today -- I'm grateful for your willingness to give it all an ear. Thanks. Sincerely... Thanks.