Book Review:
This Beautiful Mess.

Early last Fall, Rick McKinley offered free copies of his book in exchange for blog reviews. Interested, I promptly responded, received my copy and read 'This Beautiful Mess.' Ever since finishing reading it in November, I have been at a complete and total loss in my ability to write this review. Let me rephrase that: I have written and re-written this review many times both physically and mentally, but am never satisfied with what I write, mainly because it ends up being way too long. 2 reasons for this:

1.) Brevity is not my strong suit.
2.) The focus of Rick's book, 'The Kingdom of God'--what it is, and what it looks like lived out here on earth, is no brief subject.

Due to these two points, the fact that I have refused myself to post anything new until I get this review done, and the fact that we're moving to Portland in 2 weeks and Rick might beat me up if he sees me on the street for taking a free book without keeping my promise, I hereby give up on trying to do Mc Kinley's book justice. Instead, here is my 2 paragraph summary as to why I highly recommend you read this book:

Jesus said that He came to bring the Kingdom of God. Some of the other things He said about it are seemingly paradoxical--that it's within us; that it's already come; to pray for it to come. As those who claim to be His followers, understanding and collaborating in this ' Kingdom' should be our foremost priority. But as Jesus also said, the Kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field. As such, it takes alot of digging and searching to uncover it. Rick's book is a very useful tool on this journey--expanding our likely far-too-narrow view of what the Kingdom of God is (hint for all evangelicals: it's not 'just' heaven) and what our role is as collaborators with Christ--what it might actually look like when we ' let the Kingdom of God break into our everyday lives', as McKinley puts it. In our partnership with God, he also emphasizes the importance of finding beauty in the mess of this world, as well as peace with the pain of it. Chapter 11 focuses on suffering and includes brutally honest admissions from McKinley regarding his propensity to 'strategically avoid suffering' at almost any cost. Let's just say that I definitely related.

This book challenged me to repent of a hard-heart, cynicism and a general lack of love for a world that I am often disgusted by. A messy world that I often fancy myself too good for because, honestly, I prefer tidiness and beauty to a junkyard covered with smelly, decaying garbage (Rick's metaphor). In the process of my repentance, God revealed to me the disgusting amount of ' garbage' that I have contributed to making the world look more like a landfill, than a beautiful Kingdom. Through a series of revelations, I've been reminded that life in this world is like the final stages and pains of childbirth. (That's what Paul said, and it hits spot on.) This earth is groaning and straining and, for the most part, we only see what lies ahead, very dimly. This is a metaphor I can relate to. Surprisingly, this confrontation brought me a renewed sense of hope for this world and a fresh, reality-based passion for partnering with Him.