Love Does.

I read this book over the summer, and as is the tradition in my family, passed it along. My mom first read it, loved it, and proceeded to buy 4 more copies- one for each person in my family. Usually if my mom does this I say to her, "mom, as a fellow book-lover and collector I understand what you're doing, but you're killing more trees!" She would respond by telling me she was supporting a great author (who, in this case, gives the proceeds to Africa) and that everyone in our family simply had to have this book on their shelves. This is one of those books. There's plenty of Christian books out there that talk about love in action, but this book is witty, funny, heart-wrenching, and beautifully refreshing. Bob Goff gets back to the basics, while still being forward-thinking. He relates every story in his life- even the most obscure and minute ones, into an analogy of God's love. Each chapter begins with "I used to think..." showing how his life has transformed all because of Christ, and how he lives each day to show others this great gift. My favorite of these statements, perhaps, was this: "I used to think you had to be special for God to use you, but now I know you simply need to say yes." As I was reading this book and all the great things Bob has done to glorify God, I kept thinking to myself how Bob was special. One of the greatest tragedies of human life is the feeling of being so insignificant, when Jesus Christ died for all of us, and would have died for even just one of us. Bob said yes, Joan of Arc said yes, Mother Theresa said yes, I can say yes, and so can you. This book changed my life. READ IT.

"What I've learned the more time I've spent following Jesus is that God delights in answering our impossible prayers. The kind of prayers made in a dark cell by someone holding unwashed hands. Prayers asking for the things we couldn't possibly think could happen for us or someone else. Ones we might even feel a little bad saying, as if it's just asking God for too much. But what we need most is to return to Him, to return to our lives."

"I've learned that God sometimes allows us to find ourselves in a place where we want something so bad that we can't see past it. Sometimes we can't even see God because of it. When we want something that bad, it's easy to mistake what we truly need for the thing we really want. When this sort of thing happens, and it seems to happen to everyone, I've found it's because what God has for us is obscured from view, just around another bend in the road."

"Because of our love for each other, I understand just a little more how God has pursued me in creative and whimsical ways, ways that initially did not get my attention. Nevertheless, He wouldn't stop. That's what love does--it pursues blindly, unflinchingly, and without end. When you go after something you love, you'll do anything it takes to get it, even if it costs everything."