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Loading ...The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning
Imagine a stormy day at sea, your ship yielding to a relentless wind, pummeled by crashing waves, subject to the awesome force of nature. A force that is both fierce and majestic. A power that is nothing short of furious.
Such is God’s intense, consuming love for his children. It’s a love that knows no limits, and no boundaries. A love that will go to any lengths, and take any risks, to pursue us.
The Furious Longing of God is vintage Brennan Manning in a new flask. If you’ve enjoyed The Ragamuffin Gospel or Ruthless Trust you know that Brennan’s gaze holds steady. He presents a love story for the brokenhearted and those who are burdened by heavy religion. For those who feel they can never measure up. It is a provocative and poignant look at the radical, no-holds-barred love of our Heavenly Father with the potential to change how you view God. There’s something even older, more weather-beaten in his authorial voice – and yet more hopeful, perhaps desperately hopeful and reckless confident in the boundless love of God.
From the introduction:
I’m Brennan. I’m an alcoholic.
How I got there, why I left there, why I went back, is the
story of my life.
But it is not the whole story.
I’m Brennan. I’m a Catholic.
How I got there, why I left there, why I went back, is also the
story of my life.
But it is not the whole story.
I’m Brennan. I was a priest, but am no longer a priest. I was a
married man but am no longer a married man.
How I got to those places, why I left those places, is the story
of my life too.
But it is not the whole story.
I’m Brennan. I’m a sinner, saved by grace.
That is the larger and more important story.
Only God, in His fury, knows the whole of it.
censtad
Before we go any further I want to say two things that I have never said about a book on “spirituality” or “religion” or “theology”
1. I read this book in one sitting.
2. I found myself passing the book to my wife to read a paragraph or two, she would read a bit further, find something else amazing, and pass the book back to me.
In short, this book is the good stuff.
Brennan Manning is the author of The Ragamuffin Gospel, if you haven’t read it you can pretty much guess what that one was about from the sound of the word “ragamuffin”. Ragamuffins are the lowly, despised, rejected ones of the world, you know, the ones God favors, the ones that Jesus sends us to bring back into the house, the ones we miss over and over again. Well, while that book may have described a recipient of the Good News, The Furious Longing of God is their creed.
In this book Manning presents a God, Father, Abba who longs so furiously for His children that he comes and gets us. This is a book that will blow the dust off of the faith while convicting us in our stupor.
Each chapter has two discussion questions, so this book may be used in a small group. Warning to all “small group pastors” out there, if you release this book into a small group it may end up being like throwing a grenade with the pin pulled. Be prepared for the fall out, and I mean that in a good way. I will quote one of his discussion questions:
“There is the ‘you’ that people see and then there is the ‘rest of you’. Take some time and craft a picture of the ‘rest of you.’ Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions.”
Apr 27th, 2009
PadreWarren
First of all, thanks to The Ooze Viral Blogging network for inviting me to read and review selections about the Spiritual Life.The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning
My first book, The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning, came in yesterday’s mail. I finished it in about an hour. That should tell you a few things:
1. I liked it
2. It was readable
3. It wasn’t very long
All of those are true. Manning’s style is poetic and distills his view that God’s primary attribute when it comes to relationship with each of us is a passionate longing. The word furious means, in Manning’s eyes, a relentless focus and unwavering commitment to being in relationship with us all.
As with his previous work, particularly The Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning reminds the reader that God’s longing and love for us is based purely upon grace. Grace, I learned in catechism, is ‘God’s unmerited favor towards us’. This is at the heart of Manning reminding me, and telling some for the very first time, that there are no unlovable people in the eyes, mind or heart of God.
The author’s Christology is firmly rooted in the Jesus of John’s Gospel but is not ‘flat’ in that respect. He calls upon the Beatitudes and selections from the Lucan narrative to offer a multi-dimensional Jesus that is an attractive alternative for those who find the hypocrisy, materialism and elitism of some expressions of Church off-putting and shallow. To paraphrase Manning:
Jesus did not become poor, naked and suffer so that we could be rich, well-clothed and spared from suffering
The ‘consider this’ sections at the end of each short chapter invite reflection on his work and practical recommendations for how one might come to a place where God’s ‘furious longing’ is at the heart of our experience and moves out of our heads and into our hearts.
Pick up a copy, read it, and then heed the author’s plea to give it to someone desperately in need of God’s furious love and longing.
Apr 29th, 2009
chadkmiller
I read the Ragamuffin Gospel, and it morphed my faith. After 136 pages of deep thoughts on the love that God has for us, it really caused me to look into my life.
Manning weaves in stories layered with God’s love about a leper, a gawky college kid, and a nun with a past. He weaves in other author’s thoughts and he even reaches into his past. It is typical Manning, raw, honest, and moving read. I recommend it to anyone looking for a thoughtful discourse on God’s love.
Apr 29th, 2009
gdeitz
I must start off my review by stating that the book was not what I expected at all. I honestly thought that I was going to be reading a story that had hints of autobiography in it, but that was not the case. This was a book that dealt with and tried to define varying aspects of what it means to truly be a Christian. I thought that the second half of the book was more encouraging that the first part. I was honestly a little frustrated with the first half, feeling that the author was very impressed with himself and his views on faith.
If I was not reading the book for a review, I might have put it down and not returned to it. It was not that I felt the content was bad. In fact, most of the content and the ideas presented, I found encouraging and enjoyable. I ran into trouble when it started to come across to me that the author thought very highly of how he has lived his life. It was not until the second half of the book that I felt that the author could adequately relate to what many Christians face in regards to viewing themselves as a failure in the eyes of the Lord.
When Manning, moved towards the current state of the church and the truth that many people are becoming disenchanted with it, my interest increased. I was left thinking that more people need to read this and understand that the Lord loves us where we are. He loves us and sent His son for us, so that we might enter a relationship with Him. We would be united with Christ. I especially enjoyed the description that discussed what it meant to be like Christ – it is not about imitating that actions of Christ but about approaching life and people in the same manner as Christ did. That is a rather simple paraphrase, but I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that Manning pushes believers in a direction that is away from performance-based spirituality.
He encourages people to truly understand the Gospel and what it means to be made a new creation in Christ.
I am surprised to be saying this, but I would recommend this book to someone else.
May 1st, 2009
The Charismanglican
Typically I decide to review a book after I read it.
However, the ooze Viral Bloggers gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. They offered to give me free books if I agreed to review them.
Free Books, people. You know I couldn’t pass that up.
So forgive me if I come off too harsh on this book. Under other circumstances, I would have just kept silent. See, I’m in a pickle because I have a lot of respect for the author Brennan Manning and was deeply moved by his Ragamuffin Gospel.
So rather than jumping right into the content of the book, as I usually would do, I find myself talking about myself, Charlie Kaufman-style. It’s embarrassing.
Part of me thinks Brennan Manning wouldn’t mind. His book is very personal and aims at getting in your head.
And he did. I read the book the first time in about an hour. And the question that was raging in my mind was, “What kind of person do I have to be in order to receive whatever gifts this book has for me?”
Let me explain with a metaphor…
One type of song you sing in church might go like this:
So I’ll stand in awe of you
I will stand in awe of you
Yes, I’ll stand in awe of you
And another might go like this:
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,
That man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by thine own rejected,
O, most afflicted.
Both songs have the same purpose – to draw you near to God. The problem with the first one is my problem. You see, I’m a sinner. I can sing that first song and find myself thinking about what’s for lunch over-admiring an attractive woman singing a couple rows from me.
The second song might not be as catchy or emotional, but for a sinner like myself it is gracious because it actually captures my imagination and doesn’t let it go too far. It takes time to develop a single thought from various angles and it causes me to ponder its meaning. That’s what a person with my particular maladies needs.
So, to be blunt, Brennan’s new book is more like the first song. It’s like he’s saying to me:
God loves you.
NO, SERIOUSLY…he really loves you!
OMG, you have got to get that God is crazy in love with you in a really big way.
This has the curious effect of making me want to meet Brennan in person, to meet the guy who is clearly in a manic phase of God’s love. But, as a book, I just needed more to hang on to.
Early in the book it says, “I believe that Christianity happens when men an women experience the reckless, raging confidence that comes from knowing the God of Jesus Christ.”
There are times when I feel that reckless, raging confidence, but I don’t think that’s the essence of Christianity. In fact, I believe that Christianity may be happening just as strongly when you feel like the whole thing is bogus. Or when knowing God has broken your heart. Mother Theresa for example.
In other words, Manning is clearly set on making us feel the love and grace of God.
The irony of this method, to us sinners, is that it can erode our sense of grace. It tempts us to manufacture emotion that we simply don’t have in order to feel accepted by God.
This is just another side of Brennan’s candid admission that much of his ministry was working among the extremely poor or among prisoners in order to be accepted by God. You find yourself doing the right things for the wrong reasons and distanced from God because of it.
Brennan Manning feels it, and deeply…but if this book is aimed at my heart, it misses its mark.
May 2nd, 2009
edwardgoode
I have to confess that after getting the book, my mind kept phrasing the title as The Furious Longing FOR God instead of the actual title The Furious Longing OF God. So typical of the western Christian mindset to be thinking of the book as yet another thing I need to be thinking about in my spiritual maturation. So, in addition to daily quiet times, prayer moments, listening to Christian music, service in the world, etc, I need to add a furious longing for God.
How grace-filled to start to read and be hit by the mistake as I entered in to the initial pages that we are talking about God’s furious longing FOR US rather than our furious longing for God. Manning covers similar ground here that he has done in his previous books such as The Ragamuffin Gospel, but it is good ground to keep going over because it is so easily forgotten in our lives. It is so easy to get caught up each day into the “what have we done for God” race that we lose the reality of what God has already done for us. Manning puts it this way:
…I’ve decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn’t only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the falll but I would devote not one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth. No, not one. (p 65)
He has a passage that reaffirms this position near the end:
How is it then that we’ve come to imagine that Christianity consists primarily in what we do for God? How has this come to be the good news of Jesus? Is the kingdom that he proclaimed to be nothing more than a community of men and women who go to church on Sunday, take an annual spiritual retreat, read their Bibles every now and then, vigorously oppose abortion, don’t watch x-rated movies, never use vulgar language, smile a lot, hold doors open for people, root for their favorite team, and get along with everybody? Is that why Jesus went through the bleak and bloody horror of Calvary? Is that why He emerged in shattering glory from the tomb? Is that why He poured out His Holy Spirit on the church? To make nicer men and women with better morals?
The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. (pp 124-125)
This book is quite simply a brief and simple treatise on the amazing and unimaginable love of God expressed through Jesus the Christ and a statement of the freedom that we have in knowing that it is God’s love that is the deciding factor and not the works that we lift up so much. As a pastor, I have many conversations with people who struggle each day with acceptance – acceptance from other people, acceptance of themselves, and acceptance by God. They struggle daily with whether they are worth anything, whether they measure up, whether they are loved by anyone or anything. Manning lifts up a clear and unashamed affirmation of the worth of the wonderful and beautiful creations that we each are.
Like Manning’s other works, this is not a “scholarly” text that is deeply footnoted and cross referenced, but is filled with the stories of Manning’s journey and his encounters with other ragamuffins along the way. It is a book that reinforces a message that so desperately needs to be heard in our journeys.
As I read, two varied “images” came into my mind. The first was that of the storms that sweep the South Dakota prairie each year. Even after living in SD for over nine years, I never got used to the fury and power that those storms contained. They would sweep across the plains and had the power to radically reshape the landscape and the lives of anyone who was in the path of the furious storm. Those were storms of a furious destructive power. Manning speaks of a power in this book that is no less furious, but a love that is furious. A love that, like the storms over the plains, has the power to reshape anything and anyone in its path. But instead of lives being destroyed, this furious love brings healing, redemption, mercy, and hope.
The other “image” was a song by Jars of Clay entitled Hymn from their album, Much Afraid. It is a song that I listened to countless times on my drive back from the hospital internship while in seminary. I listened to it time and time again to remind me of the amazing love of God that I was trying to declare to people going through some of the most difficult periods of their lives that I, myself, was struggling to experience as well through that period in my life. I am actually listening to it right now as I type.
Hymn, by Jars of Clay
Oh refuge of my hardened heart
Oh fast pursuing lover come
As angels dance around your throne
My life by captured fare you own
Not silhouette of trodden faith
Nor death shall not my steps be guide
I’ll pirouette upon my grave
For in your path i’ll run and hide
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride
That I may in your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry
Spring worship unto thee
When beauty breaks the spell of pain
The bludgeoned heart shall burst in vain
But not when love be pointed king
And truth shall thee forever reign
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride
That I may in your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry
Spring worship unto thee
Sweet Jesus carry me away
From cold of night, and dust of day
In ragged hour or salt worn eye
Be my desire, my well sprung lye
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride
That I may in your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry
Spring worship unto thee
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride
That I may in your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry
Spring worship unto thee
Spring worship unto thee
Spring worship unto thee
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who struggles with the fact that God has accepted them and that God radically loves them. May you hear the word of grace that God loves you with a love that is beyond anything any of us can conceive.
May 3rd, 2009
jbonewald
Having read some other works by Manning, I will start off by saying that this book is very similar in theme to his previous works. Manning’s essential message is the same: God loves you, and if you have to tack on any thing else to that statement then you haven’t quite gotten the gospel message.
Manning’s work is a challenge because we all have a tendency to tack on other things to that basic message. We say: “God loves you BUT…”, “God loves you WHEN”, or “IF you…THEN God will love you.” Far too often we reduce the spiritual life to the things we have to or should do in order to be right with God.
Manning’s message, I think, is a challenge to any person of faith, whether they happen to reside in the evangelical or the progressive camp. I’ve been in both camps, and the tendency is to tack on all sorts of stipulations or to even discount the message that God might personally love (even long for) you and I.
I love that Manning doesn’t just let us sit with smug satisfaction within the reality of that statement of God’s love. Instead, he asks us to consider whether or not we truly grasp God’s love by asking us to examine whether or not we live that love out in the world around us.
He asks us: Who do you consider “unlovable?” Are they not the ones we are called to love? Are we not called to be agents of God’s healing in this world? To love those who are unlovable, responding to the love that God has poured out upon us? To be so united to Jesus that God’s love flows through us?
If you have complicated the gospel message of God’s love for you with all sorts of conditions, then this is the book for you. In fact I probably ought to go read it again myself until its message has truly sunk in.
May 4th, 2009
mattralph
Gift book. That’s the first thing that came to mind when my copy of Brennan Manning’s latest, The Furious Longing of God arrived in the mail last month.
A stretch to fill 144 pages even with a generous helping of white space and large graphic dividers splitting up the text that on appearance alone hardly justifies the $16.99 price tag, the book can easily be read over a long lunch break or a train or bus ride to or from work. That’s all it took for me to read it anyway.
Fully digesting the poignant prose contained and meditating on the questions asked at the end of each chapter? Well, that’s taken a bit longer.
In fact, as I write this I’m still registering and processing Manning’s insightful meditation on what he describes as God’s furious longing for the individuals scripture says he created in his own image. I’ve placed the book, heavily dog-eared from the first run-through, by my bedside in hopes of reading and further unpacking his words and the “consider this” questions at the end of each chapter with my wife. I look forward to passing the book on to another sojourner as Manning himself suggests when we are finished.
Cliches and Thomas Kinkade-inspired artwork held safely in check, The Furious Longing of God is a gift of a book written to a Christian audience that, as typically is the case with Manning, would benefit from unpacking, discussing, rereading, meditating on and ultimately putting into daily practice.
May 5th, 2009
grace
This latest book by Brennan Manning is simple and beautiful in its expression of God’s love. The message he so poetically portrays is one that you will want to read deeply and repeatedly. No matter what page or chapter you turn to, Brennan’s words will quickly draw you in to the heart and passion of relentless, furious, Love.
“God Almighty shares through His Son the depth of His feelings for me, His love flashes into my soul, and I am overtaken by mystery. These are moments of kairos — the decisive inbreak of God’s fury into my personal life’s story.”
“How is it then that we’ve come to imagine that Christianity consists primarily in what we do for God?”
“Our religion never begins with what we do for God. It always starts with what God has done for us, the great and wondrous things that God dreamed of and achieved for us in Christ Jesus.”
This is just a small sample of the love story shared in the pages of this short book. It is a book that you will want to leave on your coffee table, to share with others, and to give as gifts, knowing that as you share the book, you are sharing the most important truth there is, “Abba, I belong to you.”
May 7th, 2009
grace
This latest book by Brennan Manning is simple and beautiful in its expression of God’s love. The message he so poetically portrays is one that you will want to read deeply and repeatedly. No matter what page or chapter you turn to, Brennan’s words will quickly draw you in to the heart and passion of relentless, furious, Love.
“God Almighty shares through His Son the depth of His feelings for me, His love flashes into my soul, and I am overtaken by mystery. These are moments of kairos — the decisive inbreak of God’s fury into my personal life’s story.”
“How is it then that we’ve come to imagine that Christianity consists primarily in what we do for God?”
“Our religion never begins with what we do for God. It always starts with what God has done for us, the great and wondrous things that God dreamed of and achieved for us in Christ Jesus.”
This is just a small sample of the love story shared in the pages of this short book. It is a book that you will want to leave on your coffee table, to share with others, and to give as gifts, knowing that as you share the book, you are sharing the most important truth there is, “Abba, I belong to you.”
May 7th, 2009
cdierkes
John Main said that there is only one prayer–the prayer of Jesus to the Father (via the Spirit). If that is so, then there is only one experience of God: namely the experience of Jesus. The experience of God as Abba.
Brennan Manning’s book comes from the experience of one who has be invited into the life of Abba by Jesus in the Holy Spirit. Manning knows the unknowable. He knows his words are pointers only. Words like furious, union, longing of God. He knows that this all begins in grace. It is God’s faithfulness not ours that is primary.
This articulation for me is the central strength of the book and is worth reading (and more importantly actually meditating upon) for this alone. For those whose experience of Christianity has been about whether your personal faith and actions measure up to some standard, leaving you inevitably disheartened, even despairing, then his words are one of comfort. They are indeed good news.
That said, I do (in light of charity I hope) have some critiques of the book. First a somewhat minor one. Manning states that only Jesus had revealed that God is truly Father. This is not correct. The mystical reading of the Song of Solomon (The Song of Songs) that permeates so much of Manning’s spirituality where God is seen as the Bridegroom and the Soul as his Bride predates Jesus. A Jewish mystic by the name of Honi the Circle Drawer similarly called God Abba and was considered to be a miralce worker with a special most intimate relationship to God.
A more serious critique. Manning interprets his deep unitive experience through the lens of the ragamuffin. Which at its worst reinforces the individualistic ego our of (post)modern times by saying “You are loved just as you are.” This is not again to reinforce the notion of a ‘works salvation’ or create a new standard of the holy/sinner, but just that coming out of The Deep with God, there are ways that more properly express (and thereby deepen) that experience and ways I think that do not. While I grasp Manning’s more Luther-like personality, revealing in paradoxical language, the fury of God, language meant to shake us out of our normal thought patterns, maybe some more of Calvin and Ignatius (Loyola) are needed on the far side of this grace.
Manning does have moments when he grasps the importance of this point.
For example: (p.75)
“The wild unrestricted love of God is not simply an inspiring idea. When it imposes itself on mind and heart with the stark reality of ontological truth, it determines why and at what time you get up in the morning, how you pass your evenings, how your spend your weekends, what you read, and who you hang with; it affects what breaks your heart, what amazes you, and what makes you happy.”
I agree but that doesn’t exactly sound ragamuffin-ish to me. I wish he would have spent more time on this point. How do we know when are lives are becoming conformed/turned into the likeness of the image of God which we always are (but perhaps have not yet lived to the fullest)? How do we discern not just as individuals but as a community? On that last point, this work to me is somewhat too inner-individual focused. But I understand that not every book can do everything. Certainly not a book on our Christian faith.
My personal disagreements aside, it comes from someone who has known God. Who has been known by God. Who knows that he can not know The One who knows him. And yet loves (and is loved) nonetheless.
May 7th, 2009
ian.eastman
I was deeply moved by Brennan Manning’s latest book, The Furious Longing of God. An intensely personal work, this book describes a passionate love that is far removed from the polite routine of Sunday worship. He writes, “The furious love of God has been the dominant theme of my life…the shattering truth of the transcendent God seeking intimacy with us is not well served by gauzy sentimentality, schmaltz, or a naked appeal to emotion, but rather in the boiling bouillabaisse of shock bordering on disbelief, wonder akin to incredulity, and affectionate awe tinged by doubt” (24). The author does not write to give readers a dose of the warm ‘n’ fuzzies, but to testify about the God who consistently loves him even in the midst of his attempts at self-destruction. As a recovering alcoholic, Brennan Manning knows a thing or two about that.
How do you define God? Growing up I alternated between an angry god, quick to smite unbelievers, and a boring god who only enjoyed church services. Manning writes of the many false gods that he has rejected over the years: “So much of what was presented to me as real in bygone days, I now see as fictitious. The splenetic god of alternating moods, the prejudiced god partial to Catholics, the irritated god disgusted with believers, the warrior god of the ‘just’ war, the fickle god of casuistic morality, tut-tutting our little weaknesses, the pedantic god of the spirituality sophisticated, the myriads of gods who imprisoned me in the house of fear; I could go on” (37). False image or not, we will become like the god we worship. In my case for instance, I used to be extremely judgmental and critical of people different than me. The “other” was something to be changed or defeated. Would an angry god want it any other way?
If there is one thing I will take away from this book, it is that I cannot underestimate God’s love. I often think of love as an emotional state or an attribute; Manning reminded me that love is the very definition of God: “The foundation of the furious longing of God is the Father who is the originating Lover, the Son who is the full expression of that Love, and the Spirit who is the original and inexhaustible activity of that Love, drawing the created universe into itself” (38). God is love. Has a nice ring, doesn’t it?
Love changes everything! In the course of reading this book, I reflected in my journal: “Since God loves me unconditionally, I can love others, too.” I do not experience God’s love so that I can condemn and judge others. Nor do I experience it as a means to minimize or deny my bad behavior. Manning writes, “The wild, unrestricted love of God is not simply an inspiring idea. When it imposes itself on mind and heart with the stark reality of ontological truth, it determines why and at what time you get up in the morning, how you pass your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, and who you hang with; it affects what breaks your heart, what amazes you, and what makes your heart happy” (75). There is a big world out there often wanting for love. Because God loves me, I can freely give and receive love—one of the most primary human needs. It will not always be easy. Manning certainly does not candy-coat how hard it is to truly love, but he does offer hope: “It is natural to feel fear and insecurity when confronted with the radical demands of Christian commitment. But enveloped in the lived truth of God’s furious love, insecurity is swallowed up in the solidarity of agape, and anguish and fear give way to hope and desire” (120).
The Furious Longing of God caused me to reevaluate my life through a lens of God’s love. My fragile sense of self habitually keeps me pondering how I “measure up”—but this book left me thinking more about “[doing] the next thing in love” (66) day by day. Religion, self-improvement, and strategies for growth are all poor substitutes for simply accepting God’s love. Recommended reading.
May 8th, 2009
mattoakes
I never read Brennan Manning’s now legendary The Ragamuffin Gospel. At its apex in the 1990s, it seemed everyone I knew read it and found in it some thread of commonality that tied them all together. That thread, however, seemed unfortunately thin because it translated Ragamuffin into Stuart Smalley’s words of affirmation. The problem was that we all weren’t OK. We were obstinately legalistic and self-righteous, posturing as pious believing that posture of grace-fueled-works justified us. So Ragamuffin became a code word, a way to indicate that we felt that something was wrong, but a wrong which we had no idea how to move beyond. Ragamuffin somehow came to mean that we could stay where we were because Ragamuffin gave us a guise to self-confirm that we had been “ragamuffin” all along–as long as being “ragamuffin” meant holding dearly to a caustic view of faith that we knew was torturous, but which we weren’t ready to give up.
And because it wasn’t until I wrote that very paragraph that realized any of this, I was ready to rip The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning a new one.
The evisceration went something like this: “Brennan Manning’s new book follows up his squishy self-help ethos laid out in Ragamuffin. Manning confirms for the church once again that everything is OK because God loves you a lot. Gosh darn it, God likes us! So much that Manning’s book needs a video trailer. You know, because sometimes life’s like you’re stuck in a little boat in a big sea.”
I know.
And then I read the book.
Brilliantly written it is not. The odd switches between typeface, the strangely unordered chapters, the small-group questions that interrupt, the conviction that scripture be quoted in all caps, the shifts between the personal “I” and the all-seeing “I” point of view were all jarring. But I was willing to forgo all of this after page 17, when Manning writes so simply:
I’m Brennan. I’m a sinner, saved by grace.
That is the larger and more important story.
Only God in His fury, knows the whole of it.
I sat with this final sentence for two days, and when I picked the book up again I realized that The Furious Longing of God had inadvertently become my compline prayer. I began patching sections of Manning’s text into prayers, like:
The one thing I owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything.
I am blessed. My soul’s winter is over. I am blessed! The love of God is folly!
As I make my life a pattern of prayer, may these prayers make my life more like You so I simply do the next thing in love.
These prayers hold at their centers the conviction that “only God, in His fury, knows the whole of it.” That the stuff of our spiritual lives goes unsaid, for it can never be said. It can only be known. The best of friendships, according to my dear friend Kristin, are all in the knowing. I think the same is true of our lives with God. Which is way Manning’s book became the centerpiece of my prayers this week. Perhaps it explains too why Manning’s book clunks from one chapter to the next, from one block of text in caps to another in italics. What words can communicate the things that can only be known? What words are enough to fumble towards the ineffable? What can be said from the center of a storm?
May 9th, 2009
henryjz
Recently, I signed up to be a reviewer for The Ooze Viral Bloggers. You can find out more about it here.
The book I received to review is Brennan Manning’s “the furious longing of God.” You can check out the foreword, intro and first chapter of the book here courtesy of David C. Cook Publishing.
I had never read anything by Manning before so I wasn’t sure what to expect from the book. What drew me to this book was the following description from the back of the book:
“Imagine a stormy day at sea, your ship yielding to a relentless wind, pummeled by crashing waves, subject to the awesome force of nature. A force that is both fierce and majestic. A power that is nothing short of furious.
Such is God’s intense, consuming love for his children. It’s a love that knows no limits, and no boundaries. A love that will go to any lengths, and take any risks, to pursue us.”
Most of the time storms are used as a metaphor for difficulties in life, and Jesus shows up to calm the storm. This is the first time I had come across someone using a stormy sea as a picture of God’s longing for us. What a picture–God’s love as something as passionate, undpredictable and dangerous as a storm at sea!
One of the overarching themes throughout the book is the fact that God loves us (and even likes us) regardless of who we are. There is nothing that can make God love us less, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. Because of that kind of reckless love, Manning calls us to abandon our “striving” to gain God’s approval and simply and recklessly love God back.
As we learn to give God our love more than anything else, Manning reminds us that then manifests itself in our love of those around us. Manning states that we are called to a ministry of healing. Now, when I read that it took me a second to put aside pictures of charismatic meetings where people are prayed for and healed of their ailments. Manning is talking about restoration. As lovers of God, we are called to give that restorative love to those around us, especially those we have deemed unlovable (and even annoying).
I was struck by the deliberateness of Manning’s choice of words throughout the book. Don’t let this book’s deceptive brevity (136 pages) lull you into thinking there is little content within it’s pages. There were many times I had to stop and reread a sentence to get the full breadth of what Manning was trying to say.
To say something like, “I thoroughly enjoyed the book” feels like a trite description for my impression of “the furious longing of God.” I was challenged, convicted and encouraged (can you be all those things at the same time?) by what Manning had to say concerning God’s love and, in turn, how I manifest that love to those around me. I highly recommend this book to people anywhere on their spiritual journey desiring to learn, grow in greater understanding of, or even be reminded of God’s furious love for his creation.
May 10th, 2009
bhoward
I just read “The Furious Longing of God” and I have to say there are parts of the book that encourage me as I rest in God’s amazing love. I’m reminded of my love for my own children and how, although there is no real comparison with God’s love toward us, I love them simply for who they are. Manning admits in the early pages of the book that his critics point out his unbalanced presentation of God’s love minus His wrath and discipline. I found this to be true, but at the same time, he presents a wonderful message of God’s unconditional love toward us. We do indeed fall short and we typically have a very difficult time trying to understand that God truly loves us as His children. As a minister and a college teacher, I have encountered countless individuals who are struggling with acceptance – of themselves, by God and by others. Total acceptance from God no matter the state of the individual seems to be the underlying message of this book.
God has called mankind to a love relationship as Manning describes, but there are privileges and responsibilities that accompany any relationship. To focus on one without the other is unbalanced. My faithfulness or unfaithfulness to my responsibilities in no way decreases my Father’s love, which is what I understand Manning to be presenting in this book. God’s love for me does mean that He will guide me in righteousness and truth and will discipline me in order to help me stay on the path of wisdom, which is an ultimate expression of a Father’s love. This is the area in which I note a weaker or unbalanced presentation by Manning.
For the purpose of highlighting God’s unconditional love and getting us to rethink our traditional man-made paradigms, Manning does a good job and I appreciate the challenge. Charlotte Elliot wrote the words to the famous hymn, Just as I Am, and this thought keeps coming back to me. God longs for me just as I am and with no waxing and waning of His love, I can rest in His presence. Manning highlights the truth that God longs for us and this longing is evident through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I may not agree with all of Manning’s theology, but this is a book that strives to help us grasp the truth of God’s unconditional love.
May 12th, 2009
NeilCraigan
Brennan Manning is a writer whose words flow poetically from his pen. In this latest work Brennan reminds us of the length, breadth, depth and height of the love of God and God’s deep [furious] passion to love us. If we get nothing else in this life Manning says we have to get that we are loved unconditionally by God. We cannot and do not deserve that love, and yet we are loved and this is the good news we all need to hear.
Having read a number of Manning’s other works, “Ragamuffin Gospel,” “Ruthless Trust,” and “The Importance of Being Foolish,” I didn’t find much in here that was new. That being said it was restated in an extremely helpful and accessible way.
If you are in need of being reminded how much God loves you then this is a must read book. It is easily digested, doesn’t take long to read and is guaranteed to refresh your life and relationship with God. As a pastor I know this will be one of those books that I end up giving away again and again and again.
May 12th, 2009
Troy Hamby
Let me start off by saying that I love all of the Brennan Manning’s books that I’ve read so far…all 2 of them. Last year, I was at the the bargain book store and came across “The Foolishness of God” and it blew me away! I love his writing style and the story behind his life is incredibly inspiring to me, especially in this time in my life. So, needless to say, I was extremely excited to be able to read his newest book, “The Furious Longing of God” and offer a review here.
The title kind of threw me off because coming from a Pentecostal, holiness or Hell background, the only time I heard the words “fury” and “God” used in the same sentence was when some red faced pastor was referring to the furious wrath of God on sinners. Never, ever did I hear a sermon preached on the idea that God ravenously searches for me, longs to be with me and furiously love me with an everlasting love!
I could say a lot of things but that is the essence of this book…God loves you…period, end of sentence. Manning spends 131 pages driving in the point that “I am my Beloved’s and His desire is for me.” (Song of Solomon 7:10) We, in the church, have become adept at a lot of things…worship/preaching/marketing/programs….but we seem to have forgotten that “the only thing that matters is the faith that expresses itself in love.”(p.88) Manning so eloquently argues that if we could get back to the simple, innocent idea of “Jesus loves me, this I know” and allow that love to engulf us, we could get back to the job of changing the world.
I want to end the review with this quote from the book: “The wild, unrestricted love of God is not simply an inspiring idea. When it imposes itself on mind and heart with the stark reality of ontological truth, it determines why and at what time you get up in the morning, how you pass your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, and who you hang with; it affects what breaks your heart, what amazes you, and what makes your heart happy.” Wow! I highly recommend this short but extremely powerful book!
May 15th, 2009
livingboldly
So recently I received the book, “the furious longing of God” by Brennan Manning and I began reading it late one night and found that I was at once annoyed and intrigued. As I started the book I kept asking, “Wow, this author sure does talk about himself a lot – did I misread the cover and this is really an autobiography of sorts?” I think the pronoun “I” was jumping off the page so much to me that I was being distracted from what he was truly pointing to – the furious loving of God.
But I kept plodding along thinking I will catch on soon, I will find my way into this conversation. And then it happened. Manning is telling the story of a woman who is dying of leprosy named Yolanda. Yolanda is so happy when he comes to visit her and he can’t comprehend why, after all she is sick and dying of this wretched disease. So Manning asks her and she tells him that her Abba has told her that she will be taken home today. I was crying but then the tears became tears of joy because Yolanda understood the simple yet amazing truth – God’s love.
It took the simple story of a profound moment in one woman’s life (and in Manning’s life) to help me to grasp the fullness of that which is ungraspable. God’s enormous, gigantic, swirling, moving, life-changing, furious love. As Manning continues this is the center of all that he is proclaiming. The simplicity of this one truth is so moving that his writing moves in a similar frenetic, all but senseless flow from one story to another. And I, the one who values order and simplicity, was lost until I allowed the fury to take me up into the movement. I had to give up control to hear the proclamation that Manning has given his life to – God is love and if longing for each of us, all of us to be caught up in this moving, furious experience that is the love of God.
May 16th, 2009
toddhiestand
I’m almost embrassed to say that I have never actually read a book by Brennan Manning. From what I gather a lot of his books are the same lyrics but just to a different tune. If that’s true, its just fine with me because he’s writing about something that seeminly takes a lifetime to grasp. And, if I can summarize this book in one sentance, its this:
God loves you like crazy.
To me, that’s one message that we just can’t hear enough and can’t be reminded of enough. Someone, i forget who, once said that “Sometimes we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed.” Brennan Manning seems to take this advice and I’m thankful.
God. Loves. You. Like. Crazy.
We’d do well to let this messages sit with us every morning for the rest of our lives. Not suprisingly, Manning alludes to the fact that many people who give him a hard time for talking about God’s love too much. I guess i understand where they are coming from (maybe) but man, can we really talk too much of God’s love?
When it comes down to it, this is a good book for what Manning intended it for. I don’t think he was writing a comprehensive theological treatise on the love of God. I think he’s trying to write something that makes you begin all over again to come to terms with the fact that God love you like crazy.
if that was really his goal, i think he did well.
I’m happy to suggest this book to people who are having a hard time wrapping their minds around God’s unbelievable love for them.
May 21st, 2009
Tim
Exactly at the midpoint of Brennan Manning’s book come these words:
Until the love of God that knows no boundary, limit, or breaking point is internalized through personal decision; until the furious longing of God seizes the imagination; until the heart is conjoined to the mind through sheer grace, nothing happens.
Nothing happens. Nothing that matters happens in you. Nothing that matters happens through you. Nothing happens to transform you, to heal you, to wake you up to the dawn of the life God has in store for you.
Brennan Manning wants something to happen. Brennan Manning wants something to happen for you. And so he pulls out all the stops — emotional, rhetorical, poetic — to push you and prod you and upset you and compel you to open your eyes and heart and soul to see the love, the real and powerful and vibrant and furiously intense love, God has for you.
But that’s not quite right. It is God that wants something to happen in you! Brennan is merely trying to serve as the messenger, to point, to reveal, to pull back the curtain, to try to express what cannot be rightly expressed, but to hint at it poignantly enough to bring us to look for ourselves.
If the book has a fault, it is that sometimes Manning’s “cuteness,” his toying with language to try to stretch it to say what cannot be said, his use of stories about himself which are mostly rather unflattering, sometimes get in the way and may be distracting, making us think about him instead of the One to whom he points.
And, yet, I cannot really fault him for the way he has done the book. You can’t get at personal relationship impersonally. You cannot hint at, point at, the transforming love of God by being scholarly. You have to get personal. You have to be, not just the teacher, but the messenger, the one who can say, “Can you see what I see?”
The book is not scholarly, not an essay or a treatise, but more a collection of reflections and meditations and prayers and poems. I did appreciate, however, Manning frequent use of quotations from other authors, from other Christians, from other pilgrims. One of my favorites was this ironic observation from Gerald May:
The entire process (of self-development) can be very exciting and entertaining. But the problem is there’s no end to it. The fantasy is that if one heads in the right direction and just works hard enough to learn new things and grows enough and gets actualized, one will be there. None of us is quite certain exactly where there is, but it obviously has something to do with resting.
And then there are the lines from Rich Mullins’ song, The Love of God, one of the sources for the title of Manning’s book:
In the reckless, raging fury
that they call the love of God.
That is the relentless refrain of this book: open yourself to the love of God for you! The essence of our faith is not about what we can do for God, but about what God has done, what God is doing for us. It is a book about God, a book that hopes to lead you, the reader, into God’s embrace, a book that urges you and entices you, not to know about God, but to know God.
It is there, in the embrace of God’s love, that our wounds are healed, and it is there that we may become healers, instruments of God’s peace … which is our intended vocation!
May 21st, 2009
Blue Like Elvis
Brennan Manning is loved by many for his book The Ragamuffin Gospel. I was not a huge fan of Ragamuffin nor The Furious Longing of God. Manning is a master of images. The image he paints in Furious Longing of a small ship striving to the shore in the midst of a storm is beautiful portrayal of God striving after his creation. I love the image.
Yet, Manning never moves deeper than images and anecdotes. Don’t get me wrong, the images are beautiful and the anecdotes are inspiring. I simply feel that the book market is flooded with such writing. Christian book stores need more depth. Our churches need more depth.
This book provides for great devotional reading. I read it a chapter at a time each morning, though the book is small and could be read in a simply a few sittings. Those looking for an inspirational short story will find many in this work. Those looking to set sail and wade through the waters of the furious longing of God will walking away wanting more. One the other hand, that may be a good thing…
May 21st, 2009
Blue Like Elvis
Brennan Manning is loved by many for his book The Ragamuffin Gospel. I was not a huge fan of Ragamuffin nor The Furious Longing of God. Manning is a master of images. The image he paints in Furious Longing of a small ship striving to the shore in the midst of a storm is a beautiful portrayal of God striving after his creation. I love the image.
Yet, Manning never moves deeper than images and anecdotes. Don’t get me wrong, the images are beautiful and the anecdotes are inspiring. I simply feel that the book market is flooded with such writing. Christian book stores need more depth. Our churches need more depth.
This book provides for great devotional reading. I read it a chapter at a time each morning, though the book is small and could be read in simply a few sittings. Those looking for an inspirational short story will find many in this work. Those looking to set sail and wade through the waters of the furious longing of God will walking away wanting more. On the other hand, that may be a good thing…
May 21st, 2009
mattdabbs
I thought I would try a little something different to give you an idea of how good Manning’s new book, The Furious Longing of God, really is. Instead of giving one of those reviews that summarizes the book, gives general impressions and then to help you realize just how much you need this book, I thought it might be more fun to do a review categorized by Koine Greek moods:
Indicative – The book was a little hard to get into at first. His style takes some adjusting. My wife read the book as well and had a little difficulty until about the halfway point and then she enjoyed it much better. Manning tends to be a little choppy, the chapters are short and it is a quick read. But if you really digest what is there the read could take much longer as Manning is able to chock more meaning into as few of words as anyone I have read. His message of God’s love and longing for his people is unmistakable and it is difficult to walk away from this read without feeling an inherent sense of self-worth and appreciation for God’s view of us. There are several stories and illustrations from this book that will be with me the rest of my life. What is more, he doesn’t stick with how God views us…he also moves from the response that should elicit in us toward others.
Imperative – Go and buy a copy of this book. Read it. Apply it. Live it. Understand God that much more.
Subjunctive – You may or may not like the first few chapters of the book due to his style. If you read this book you may want to follow it up by reading Raggamuffin Gospel. That might just be as good of a read as the Furius Longing of God.
Optative – May you be blessed by your reading of this book. May you go to the link above and purchase many books from amazon during your visit.
This book was good enough that my wife is going to let someone borrow it this Sunday. I think it is going to make the rounds at church.
May 28th, 2009
admin
This was a great book
Jun 2nd, 2009
yeti
I just read “The Furious Longing of Love” by Brennan Manning. It is not Manning’s most original piece of work, but your heart will be deeply moved and your life enriched. If you have read “Abba’s Child” you will find many similar concepts contained within this book. However, Manning has done a masterful job of condensing his ideas and concepts down into bite size pieces here that make the book possible (and even tempting) to read in one sitting. The book is applicable to you wherever you are in your relationship with God. I frequently need to be reminded of how furiously the Father loves me – I don’t often think I deserve such love. I recommend you pick this book up! [[3 out of 5 stars]]
Jun 20th, 2009
remcc3
Google the name “Brennan Manning” and websites will pop up warning of the sins of Brennan Manning. Caught in dry places, these sites correct our unorthodox tendencies and explain exactly why Brennan Manning and a host of other Christian authors are wrong. Dead wrong they would say. The Furious Longing of God will likely fire up a new round of diatribes from Christian haters incorporated. As Manning quotes Hans Van Bathasar, “Woe to the rich and to the doubly rich in spirit! Although nothing is impossible with God, it is difficult for the Spirit to move their fat hearts.” Manning does attempt to move fat hearts to a place where we see the Father with new eyes – the eyes of the child who finally gets it that the Father loves without pretense or pre-qualification.
For those who have read The Ragamuffin Gospel and his other writings, this work is classic Manning . Although it sometimes lacks the fluidity of his earlier works, The Furious Longing of God in its simplicity still whispers encouragement to those wearied by placement theologies. There is no pretense here. Abba does not require a strategic improvement plan to accept us. Brennan Manning walks us down a familiar evangelical road and then using the Song of Songs as a guide, we step unto a delightful path of wonderment of the one who made us. And as we rest along this path we hear told again the love story of the Father who relentlessly pursues us.
In familiar Manning style, the author transparently uncovers his own frailties and failures as part of a worthwhile premise to consider God’s love. No doubt there will be those who will continue to howl at his portrayal of God’s grace – In the words of an earlier critic who said, “Manning out Luthers Luther.” But the words of Manning do not cater “to the idealistic, perfectionistic and neurotic self who fixates on graceless getting worthy… while allowing the prostitutes and tax gougers to dance into the kingdom.” No, the words are meant for those of us weary from trying to prop up the kingdom by our own self-absorption . Those of us who can no longer justify the urge to jockey for a position that we think God finds favorable. And for those of us just tired. Yes, The Furious Longing for God is a love story for the broken hearted as the book jacket suggests. But it is also a Pharisees Anonymous meeting for those of us in recovery who need help staying on the wagon. God’s grace, indeed is sufficient.
Jul 8th, 2009
pstrben
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Furious Longing of God
From the introduction:
I’m Brennan. I’m an alcoholic.How I got there, why I left there, why I went back, is thestory of my life.But it is not the whole story.
I’m Brennan. I’m a Catholic. How I got there, why I left there, why I went back, is also thestory of my life. But it is not the whole story.
I’m Brennan. I was a priest, but am no longer a priest. I was amarried man but am no longer a married man. How I got to those places, why I left those places, is the storyof my life too. But it is not the whole story.
I’m Brennan. I’m a sinner, saved by grace.That is the larger and more important story.Only God, in His fury, knows the whole of it.
Wow! What a way to start a book! This book is for everyone – everyone who wants to know that God loves them, that is. It’s great to read (and re-read) Brennan Manning’s books. They provide the much needed perspective that many churches and Christians are lacking in today’s culture – GRACE coupled with a deep and un-restricted LOVE! It’s amazing how much we allow the thoughts and expectations of others to cloud the knowledge that God loves us in a furious and un-stoppable way.
I’m with Brennan (and many other authors) who call us to live a life that is worthy of the Love lavishly given to us. Brennan says (on page 119) that “we have all experienced the sadness of a Christian life that is secure, well regulated, but basically impoverished. We long, at least occasionally, for a generosity that would lift us above ourselves.” This book is another call to recognize the Love of God in our lives and to live that Love out in our everyday-ness.
We no longer have to live a defeated life and the expectations and limitations placed on us by our society no longer have to contain the love that should (and will) overflow from our hearts as we experience the Furious Longing of God to LOVE us with an unreasonable love!
Whew! What a reminder!
Aug 14th, 2009
pastorfredwolfe
In classic Brennen Manning style, threads of stories are masterfully woven together to form a patchwork mosaic describing the furious longing of God. Reading this book gave me an even greater desire to stalk this author for a year and become a voyeur into his passionate relationship with Christ. With chapter titles such as Fury, Boldness, Healing, Fire and Giving, each is short enough for a fifteen minute devotion, and the entire text can be read in one afternoon. Within this relatively short book are the jewels Brennen has become known for. You will cry for the once beautiful leper who uses her last words to change Manning’s life, and the frumpy hippie college kid who’s father changes everything. Brennen uses word to describe God that sometimes make me cringe, and I would never have the chutzpah to use them myself. He calls the love of God “folly”, and calls God Himself, “Divine Madman”. Throughout the book however, you get the feeling that Brennen has such an intense and personal relationship with Abba God, that it’s OK for him. It’s like a mystical inside joke just between the two of them. All in all, I highly recommend the reading and re-reading of this book.
Sep 2nd, 2009
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