Lenten thoughts on holiness, part 2 Review of Josh Nadeau’s Room for Good Things to Run Wild (2024)
Josh Nadeau’s Room for Good Things to Run Wild (2024)
is a long-awaited breath of fresh air…and hope.
Having grown up with a legalistic approach to holiness which largely
consisted in external conformity to rules most of which, as it turns out, aren’t
“biblical”, I haven’t really known how to think about holiness for a long time. As a kid/teenager, it was No smoking, No
drinking, No TV, No video games, No books of fantasy, No Disney movies, No sex
before marriage, No “work” on Saturdays (i.e. the Sabbath), No missing Sunday
morning church services, No…nothing (or so it seemed). Though I did take up moderate social consumption
of alcohol as a young adult, and though I am now an unashamed cinephile and
lover of fantasy literature, I have never indulged in the typical “vices” of “the
world”. But does that make me a holy
person? Surely being a “saint” is more
than the simple avoidance of certain forbidden activities?
As G.K.
Chesterton once said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting,
it has been found difficult, and left untried”.
Or, as Eric Metaxas has summed up the thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Being
a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin and more about courageously
and actively doing God’s will”. While
there is a certain type of personality that finds comfort in abiding by a set of
arbitrary rules, fastidious commandment-keeping can all too often be a mask for
the vice of cowardice (cf. Rev. 21.8).
It takes guts to be a saint, and passive personality-types (like myself)
must be transfigured into brave souls who will embark on the adventure of
holiness. Cue Josh Nadeau.
In this
honest, raw spiritual autobiography (cf. Augustine’s Confessions, Merton’s
Seven-story Mountain, Lewis’ Surprised by Joy, etc.), Josh tells the
tale of his rediscovery of God’s grace and a truly life-giving, transformative
way of discipleship that often proves elusive to so many of us long-time Christians. As becomes painfully clear from the opening
lines of his book, Josh’s conventional Christian life – marriage, job, church
attendance /involvement, theology degree (!) – was simply a mask for the
spiritual/ existential/moral mess he was in.
Indeed, Josh’s “Christian life” at that point only served to exacerbate
his struggles, as fellow believers “coached” him to simply try harder, to pray
more, to read more of the Bible, etc.
Sound familiar? The harder he
tried, the worse things got, as what he perceived as his repeated “spiritual
failures” drove Josh to drown his despair in his vice of choice – alcoholism. Josh’s book is the story of how he went from being
a drunk, hypocritical, aimless, confused, messed-up Christian to a disciple who
is acutely aware of both his weaknesses /vulnerabilities as well as the mercy
of God, the power of the Spirit, and the love of Jesus.
Before
making the mistake of dismissing this “testimony” as cringingly cliché, read
the book, share Josh’s journey from the despair of “faking holiness” to the
experience of the genuine article in the ordinary events of everyday life – on the
job, on the street, in the home and in your hobbies and friendships. This is a book for ordinary saints – for those
of us (like me) who desire to taste the reality of what our Christian faith
promises to all those who commit to following the way of Jesus – abundant life
and true peace and contentment. If you’re
sick and tired of being (spiritually) sick and tired, Tolle lege![1] You and I are called to be saints. The good news is that it is indeed possible. Jesus beckons us to begin the journey right
where we are. Are you not/ready?
[1] In Augustine’s Confessions,
he describes the experience of hearing a child’s voice say this Latin phrase
which means “Take up and read!”. What he
took up was Romans 13.13-14, which convicted him to the point of fully
committing to the life of discipleship.
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