The Furious Longing of God, by Brennan Manning (David C. Cook, 2009). My rating: 5 of 5.
You may believe God exists without much trouble. Believing God actually loves you, today, as you are, is harder. Most of us carry a quiet ledger of how we are doing spiritually and assume God keeps the same one. If that sounds familiar, this small book is for you.
What the book covers
Manning was a former Franciscan priest and a recovering alcoholic, and he never hid either fact. This is one of his last books and one of his shortest, about 141 pages in eleven brief chapters. Each chapter closes with a couple of questions for reflection or group discussion.
The single theme is the love of God: unconditional, reliable and tender. He opens with a retreat where he prayed one verse from the Song of Songs for days on end, and he builds from there. He moves through the Trinity, adoption as God’s children, healing, and the call to love other people the way God has loved us.
What stayed with me
Easier to believe God exists than that God loves us. Manning cites Cardinal Basil Hume of London on this point, and it is the clearest diagnosis in the book. Many faithful people have the first belief down and are still working on the second.
Love as God’s identity. In people, love is a virtue we work at. In God, Manning says, love is who God is. That echoes 1 John 4:8 and changes how you hear every other line of Scripture.
Stop grading yourself. He says that if he could live his life again, he would spend no more time monitoring his own spiritual growth. The point is not to stop caring. The point is to stop treating God as an auditor.
A thirty-day prayer. He gave one woman a simple practice: sit each morning, palms up, eyes closed, and pray “Abba, I belong to you” for thirty days. It is the most practical page in the book, and it costs nothing to try.
Affirmation as ministry. Manning describes affirming someone as learning “to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves” and then saying so, again and again. Every parent, teacher and pastor could stand to read that page.
Grace first. “Our religion never begins with what we do for God.” It starts with what God has already done. That is the whole book in one line.
Two small notes
Manning repeats the popular claim that Abba means “daddy.” Scholars have pushed back on that since the late 1980s. It is better to say Abba is an intimate, family word for Father. He also says only Jesus revealed God as Father. The Hebrew Scriptures already call God Father in places such as Isaiah 63:16 and Psalm 103:13. Jesus made it central and personal.
Who should read it
Anyone who believes the right things about grace and still feels like a disappointment to God. It reads in an afternoon, but it works better slowly, one chapter a day. It also suits a small group, since the discussion questions are already built in.
Quotes are short excerpts credited to the author. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The price you pay does not change. I read this book on my own, and no one asked me or paid me to review it. My faith writing reflects my own views, not those of my parish or diocese. See Disclosures.