This morning I started to read Mark Batterson’s book “Wild Goose Chase.” I am very excited about this book! The subtitle to this book is “Reclaim the adventure of pursuing God.” The premise behind this book is that the “spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed” (pg. 1). In the first chapter, Batterson wonders if churches have caged Christians. He says: “… too often we take people out of their natural habitat and try to tame them in the name of Christ. We try to remove the risk. We try to remove the danger. We try to remove the struggle. And what we end up with is a caged Christian” (pg. 6). I can relate to this very much. For a lot of my Christian life I lived this way. I lived in the “Christian bubble” or “cage” as Batterson puts it. Since coming back from my medical leave a year and a half a go, God has re-awakened within me a passion to not be caged as a Christian anymore. I want to live dangerously for God!
In this book, Batterson talks about six cages that keep us from roaming free and living the spiritual adventure God destined us to: (1) The cage of responsibility - over the course of our lifetime, God ordained passions tend to get buried beneath day-to-day responsibilities; (2) the cage of routine – At some point in our spiritual journey, most of us trade adventure for routine; (3) the cage of assumptions – as we age we stop believing and start assuming; (4) the cage of guilt - as long as you are focused on what you’ve done wrong in the past you won’t have energy to dream kingdom dreams; (5) the cage of failure – divine detours and divine delays are the ways God gets us where He wants us to go and (6) the cage of fear – we need to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death (pg. 11-13).
As I already said, I am very excited about this book! I believe that God has put this book in front of me at the exact right time in my life. I don’t want to play it safe anymore! I want to live dangerously for God!
Where would you put yourself on the scale of “playing it safe” and “living dangerously for God” (1 being totally playing it safe and 10 being totally sold out for living dangerously for God)?
This book is definetly now on my reading list I definetly identify with number 2
Thanks for sharing Jason! You should definitely buy it . . . it is a great book.
Ah, that whole theme is intense! How easy it is to play it safe and stay hidden away in our cushy bubbles of containable ministry! Thanks for recommending this book. I'm already blessed by its message based on the overview you offered. I don't want to settle for safe, nor do I want to push my chruch family to do so. God's bigger than our day-to-day predictable routines and norms. Ask any of the Bible heroes what was normal or safe about their experience with God and they'd probably laugh!
Thanks for stopping by and sharing Ryan! I agree, there was nothing safe about what the Bible heroes did and that SHOULD be our experience as well.