I returned a call last week to a former employee who is finishing up his Masters degree in Public Administration.  He called for a class assignment, which was to talk to someone he respected in leadership and to find out what books they had read on the subject of public administration that they would recommend.  I was honored that he called me, but have to confess that it took me a week to think of what I’d recommend.  In the end, I told him that there was only one assigned book from my entire degree program that I’d recommend, but that it shared the life of a man that absolutely defied the principles of public administration as taught in academia today.  But, he got stuff done.  And, the rest of the books I could recommend were outside my degree program…not sure about what that says of the program…

Still, not willing to leave it at one book that defied all they taught me in my MPA program, I provided the following list of the books that mattered to me when I was in the public administration career path…

1. Proverbs 16
2. Psalms
3. The above reference book: The Power Broker, Robert Moses (get it done book)
4. The Nursing Father: Moses as a Political Leader, Aaron Wildavsky (non-authoritarian leadership)
5. Ruthless Execution, Amir Hartman (get done what matters book)
6. Trust Me, Hastings and Potter (principled leadership modeled on Jesus)

While I’m at it…here’s the current reading list:
Luke, Psalms110-120 series, Colossians 2, Ephesians 6, Romans 8
We Wrestle Not, Pastor Marvin Smith (spiritual warfare)
The Christian Atheist, Craig Groeschel
In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Mark Batterson
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller
The Vertical Self, Mark Sayers
Recently finished:
The Hole of No Hope, Tom Sooter
The New Commodity Trading Guide, Kleinman
The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul (fantastic read!)
John’s Story, LaHaye
Wild Goose Chase, Mark Batterson (he’ll change the way you think)
The Best Things in Life, Peter Kreeft
The Visitation, Frank Peretti
Forgotten God, Francis Chan
Skin, Ted Dekker
Grace Based Parenting, Tim Kimmel (the last half of the book is particularly good)
Waking the Dead, John Eldredge
The Unaborted Socrates, Peter Kreeft

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”  Acts 19:13-15

Says Smith:

“We have spent so much of our time trying to get earthly fame, when we should spend out time getting our name known in the dark realms…”

So much of “the trip” was to find You Jesus.  To really find You.  I did.  Now I see You. Because of this, this week weighs so heavy on me.  I know that this isn’t where You will leave me this week–sad, ponderous, thankful, overwhelmed with the tragedy and inhumanity and cruelty that You suffered.  But, for now I can’t think of much other than what You were going through during this weekend a couple thousand years ago…

I slept late, having forgot to set my alarm clock to ensure I had my early time with You, while You watched Barabbas, the guilty one, walk free and heard the screaming, demon-infused crowd of religious leaders demanding crucifixion.

I ate a late breakfast of chocolate chip muffins while you were being stretched and nailed, literally nailed with spikes and a small sledge, to a beam of rough wood by crude, mocking, pagan, foreign soldiers that spared You no disgrace or granted any reprieve from the torture they conducted with such vigor and efficiency.

My late lunch, which followed a morning of routine house projects, took place after You’d missed lunch and breakfast.  You were now suspended in agony and in the dark, experiencing two things of great horror that You neither deserved nor had ever experienced before: the ugliness of sin and complete separation; and these on a cosmic scale that we could never understand because we’ve never known anything else…

I slept, taking a nap, when the Father turned His back, You cried “It is finished!”, the ground shook, and the temple was “desecrated”.

I ate pizza and watched Air Buddies with my kids while Joseph, having talked with Pilate, was pulling down Your bloody, depleted, lifeless body so that it could be placed quickly into a hole in a rock.

I watched a movie, a comedy of no redeeming value, while the apostles, your Mom, and your closest friends were shell shocked, ashamed, crushed, and completely devastated by the reality of how quickly all had been lost.

Over and over my spirit wonders…why me?

I know the doctrine and can teach the theology, but my spirit ponders, why me Jesus?!

My Jesus, I love thee,
I know thou are mine.
For Thee all the follies
of sin I resign.
My gracious redeemer,
my Savior art thou.
If ever I loved thee
my Jesus tis now.

“It is one of the greatest proofs of the depravity of man’s heart that he will no more obey the gospel than the law, but disobeys his God, whether he speaks to him in love or in law.”

<http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByConference/46/4503_Lessons_from_an_Inconsolable_Soul/>

Knowing that some won’t be able to take the time to watch this or read the full set of notes…here’s a recap…the cliff notes, if you will…(All unattributed quotes are from Lewis, unattributed statements are Piper)

IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE–check out the quote in point 5 towards the end…

Piper begins with an appropriate and well stated discussion about the severe limitations of relying on Lewis for Biblical doctrine…

Premise:

The greatness of Lewis was the ability to combine the pursuit of true joy using the tools of rational thought and argument.  He was able to combine a God-shaped experience of joy with an unparalleled defense of absolute truth.  He could do this, he recognized, because God is real, and IS truth, He is the central “story”.

Joy:

Joy was the central theme of Lewis’ life…

“The experience of joy is an unsatisfied desire, which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.”

“Joy has only one characteristic in common with “happy” or “pleasure”; that you will want it again.”

Joy is an “inconsolable longing.”

Joy isn’t in our power, though pleasure often is.

Story:

Piper: Even before his conversion, Lewis found joy most often in old Christian writers…

His friend J.R.R. Tolkien said: “when this joy, this stab of inconsolable longing is awakened by certain powerful myths or stories, it is evidence that behind these myths there is a true Myth.  There is a true Story that really exists…These stories are the echoes…”

Lewis: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Truth:

Lewis became an atheist only 2 years before he became a Christian.

Lewis knew that if absolute truth went, joy went, because joy, real joy, was found in the Absolute.

“There was no doubt joy was a desire, but a desire is turned not to itself, but to its object.  The form of the desired is in the desire.  It is the object which makes the desire harsh or sweet, course or choice, high or low.  It is the object that makes the desire itself desirable or hateful.  I have been wrong in supposing that I desired joy itself.  Joy itself considered simply as an event in my own mind turned out to be of no value at all.  All the value lay in that of which joy was the desiring.  And, that object was quite clearly no state of my own mind or body at all.”

Piper: Lewis went the opposite direction of the entire modern world–he believed and defended the premise that absolute truth exists.  “And, we live in a sea of postmodern relativism that he [Lewis] could smell and hate with all his might.”

Lewis’ Abolition of Man was his most important critique of modern culture and defense of absolute truth.

Piper notes that he doesn’t think Lewis ever read Jonathan Edwards, and if he had, he would have hated Edwards.  He makes this argument by extension, knowing that Lewis’ spiritual mentor was an avid opponent of Edwards’ teaching.  Piper notes how strange a thing it is for him to have his two most influential writers–Edwards and Lewis–so diametrically opposed on basic theology.

Having said that Lewis wasn’t in the Reformed theology camp, Piper shares a quote of Lewis on the chief purpose of man in Absolution: “The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  But, we shall think now that these are the same thing.  Fully to enjoy is to glorify.  In commanding us to glorify, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”  (very Piper-ish)

What drew Lewis to God [search for joy] became the goal in Lewis’ life.  “No one else combined joy with absolute truth like Lewis.”

Implications of Lewis’ Perspective for Piper:

Lewis’ pursuit of joy and use of rational, logical argument and defense led to:

1) Liberation from a false dichotomy where passion and joy must be separated from mature and rational thought.  Rigorous, precise logic is not the opposite of spiritual experience.  Lewis was a “Romantic Rationalist.”  He commanded poetry and logical defense, he mastered metaphor and definition.

2) Liberation from chronological snobbery.  This is the completely untrue notion that something is good because it is old or that something is good because it is new.

Lewis never read newspapers, wore a watch, or even mastered a typewriter.  He was known for wearing the same old clothes until they fell apart.

3) He instills a clean, penetrating sense of ache for joy and amazement and the objective realness of things that pulls one out of self-absorption.  Lewis teaches one to savor the world and its Maker with a heightened sense of reality.  Lewis was described as having “omnivorous attentiveness.”

Piper follows this with an impassioned statement that we should get out of bed every morning with an ecstatic sense of “He did it again!”  Piper notes that if you take this perspective to the Bible it pops.

4) Lewis warned of the perils of introspection.  Piper connected this to issues of assurance of salvation…

Piper: “The effort to know the experience of joy by looking at the experience of joy is self-defeating.”

Lewis: “The moment we step outside ourselves to contemplate our enjoying we are no longer enjoying.”

“Pursuit of joy must always be indirect, focusing not on the experience of joy, but on the object of joy.  The moment I turn around to examine the experience, I no longer do it and I can no longer see it.”

Piper: “The most authentic faith in Jesus is suspended when we begin to analyze our faith in Jesus.  That means this analysis always ends in discouragement.  When we trust most authentically, we are not thinking about trusting.  We’re thinking of Christ!”

We need to pray for self-forgetfulness.

5) Lewis describes the incompleteness of duty without delight.  Piper connects this to truly walking in the Spirit.  The error here is in doing duty from outside pressures–religion.

“A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty.  He’s always want the right thing more than the wrong one.  Duty is only a substitute for love.”

Piper notes that this absolutely changes the pursuit of holiness in our lives.

Again noting that Lewis would not fall in the Reformed theology camp, Piper uses a quote from Lewis’ History of England regarding Tyndale and the pre-Reformation movement:

“In reality, Tyndale is trying to express an obstinate fact which meets us long before we venture into the realm of theology–the fact that morality or duty, “the law”, never yet made a man happy in himself or dear to others.  It is shocking, but it is undeniable.  We do not wish either to be or to live among people who are clean, or honest, or kind as a matter of duty.  We want to be and associate with those who like being clean, and honest, and kind.  The mere suspicion that what seemed an act of spontaneous friendliness or generosity was really done as a duty subtly poisons it.  Morality is healthy only when it is trying to abolish itself.  [Piper notes that Christ was the end of the law...] In theological language, no man can be saved by works.  The whole purpose of the gospel for Tyndale is to deliver us from morality; thus, paradoxically, the Puritans of modern imagination–cold, gloomy, hard, doing as duty what richer souls do without thinking about it–is precisely the enemy which historical Protestantism arose and smote.”

6) Lewis showed the caution of overreaching with story:

His friends described Lewis as having an “expository demon” as they encouraged him to give up his heady, theological works for writing stories.

Story is great, but it isn’t everything.  Story shouldn’t be overstated to the exclusion of exposition, doctrine, teaching, argument, and defense.

7) Lewis portrays an understanding of heavenly joy that God enables us to live in–an exalting awe of what it means to be human.  See people in a sense of wonder, recognizing they are image bearers of God.  The people around us, the most common and plain, are immortals!

Because of this, Lewis taught that all of life is serious, even our play.

Joy is not an even in the mind.

“I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

Fearless

by Max Lucado

This was my first Max Lucado book. I hesitated to pick up a Lucado book because of their “popularity”. I often find that more mainstream writers are just a bit too cheesy or light for my taste. I picked this book because of the subject matter, not the author (that and it had a really cool cover…). In my personal spiritual journey I’ve been on a pursuit of truly living by faith. Fear isn’t my issue, per se, but learning to live by faith is. I was wrong in the case of Lucado. I was wrong about Lucado. This was a good read. This book was well worth my time, and my reservations about Lucado were unfounded.

The book is not deep or doctrinal in its approach and it was a relatively quick read. But, this does not mean it lacked value. It is on point, practical, and scripture-based. Lucado chooses an engaging and accurate mix of examples from scripture and the lives of people on a pursuit of faith to reinforce his points as he moves through the book. There is just enough meat to ensure that the reader gets real-world value, in some cases with specific practical advice that could actually be used. Lucado doesn’t waste words, nor does he stray from the path of the book. I can’t say this of most writers.

The construct of the book is to walk the reader through a number of the broad categories where fear intersects with life. The breadth of the topics covered would almost qualify the book as a survey of fear in our lives, but there is no sense in reading the book that you are being drug through a number of “extra” topical areas that will have no applicability. Each category of fear is met with truth. In all cases, Lucado brings the reader back to Jesus, so his conclusions are what we need to hear.  And, I think its value will grow over time. As a person starts to struggle in a particular area of life with fear, the book’s construct would allow a quick review to renew one’s mind.

This is a book that people need to read.

Thomas Nelson provided a complimentary copy of this book.