Easter Devotional Sale: Resurrecting Beauty
Resurrecting Beauty, an Easter devotional, is now 20% off at the bookstore! You can also find it on Amazon. I’ll also give a free copy to anyone who shares a link to the book on social media (let me know if you do). See below for an introduction to the book, which has been recently revised and updated. Happy Easter!
This may seem like a strange book to come from the pen of a counselor. There is little in this book that speaks of the problems of everyday life. If you are looking for “how-to” application of Scripture, you will be disappointed. There are other books written for that purpose. My goal in this book is not to counsel you.
Nor is my goal to instruct you. If you want clear, exegetical explanations of a biblical text, again, there are other books that will be more helpful to you than this. If this is a commentary at all, it is a commentary for the heart.
This book, which is subtitled “A Portrait of Jesus Christ,” is just that: a portrait. It is not a photograph. Although I have been careful to stay within the realm of Christian orthodoxy, I have taken the same liberties that an artist takes in painting a person’s portrait. Like an artist enlarging a mole or omitting fine jewelry to fit the subject, I emphasize details that a good sermon may not even mention and neglect facts that dominate the pages of an academic commentary. And I do so for the same reason as the artist: because sometimes a photograph does not reveal a person as truly as a painting. I am no painter, but I can tell a story. And so my hope is to retell the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus in a way that helps you see him more truly. I may blur some important facts. I may fade some huge events into the background. Yet I do so because I want to make sure you don’t lose sight of the beautiful Savior who is the subject of the portrait.
In my time as a counselor and as a human being, I have noticed something. What struggling people need most – and what I need most – is not more analysis of our problems, though there is a time and place for that. It is not more information, though some is certainly necessary. Analysis of our problems, information about God and our world and ourselves – these things are incomplete and insufficient until they take root in our hearts.
So I will show you the cards in my hand: I want to move you. And I want to do so with information that’s probably already in your head. I want to use beauty to pile-drive truth into your heart. I want you to see Jesus in a way that draws you to follow him, not begrudgingly, but irresistibly, as if you’d be a fool to live for anything else.
My goal, in other words, is to help you worship. I have found that nothing helps people more in the counseling room than worshiping with them. Not that we take out a hymn book and sing together. No, we enjoy God together. After a glimpse of the cosmic majesty of God, problems that were edging us toward the cliff seem a little smaller, a little more surmountable. After finding superior pleasure at the feet of Jesus, we find that the grip of our addiction has weakened a little, its seduction cheapened a little. Hearing anew of Jesus’ persistent love for sinners, we find our wounded hearts have begun to heal and are a little softer toward our enemies. The goal of this book is not to address the second half of those things – the problems – but to help you enjoy God, the greatest purpose and privilege of our lives, and which, as a bonus, also happens to be the best way to prepare our hearts for growth and change.
But I have to confess, I didn’t write this book with you in mind, not initially. I wrote this first to worship my way out of my own problems. I had begun to feel claustrophobic in the ever-increasing sin and sorrow of those I counsel. No matter what I did, I could find no way out. It felt like there had been a cave-in, and all the normal routes to fresh air and light were sealed off. In this book you’ll find me in the cave with my little candle and a pick axe, chipping away at the impasse, one bit of worship at a time, one bit of beauty at a time. I hope reading it will help you worship your way out just as writing it has helped me.
