Way back, when I was just getting started with this journey, I went to a place that typically provides me with wisdom and peace. No, not my parents or a pastor or a mentor. No, not the Internet. I went to Barnes and Noble. There are few things that help me clear my head, relax and gain perspective more effectively than prowling the aisles of a good bookstore with a hot coffee in one hand and a stack of potential purchases in the other.  I did less browsing on this visit than is usual for me, because I had a specific need to fill. I even passed up the coffee in my singular pursuit, as I marched toward the religion section.

I was prepared to comb through several rows of books and devotionals to find something that might be relevant for where I was in the journey. I had no recommendations and no preconceptions, not the foggiest idea of who or what the right author, subject matter or style of writing might be. I was just there because it was a place I trusted, and because I thought I was supposed to be there to take the next step. As it happened, I almost immediately came across a book called Wide Awake by Erwin Rafael McManus. The cover is stark white with a large steel-blue eyeball staring out at you. It felt like it was staring RIGHT AT ME. I picked it up and read the first paragraph from the jacket. It said:

“Maybe you have been asleep. You have never lived up to your potential. You have unfulfilled dreams and longings. If you’re dead, let Jesus raise you up to new life. If you have been sleepwalking, it’s time to wake up and start dreaming wide awake.”

That’s all I read before rushing to the counter and taking it home with me. I devoured it over the course of three days and gained a lot of insight. It was just the book I needed to read at that moment. A good swift kick in the pants to energize me, but in a positive way.  Thank you God, and thank you Barnes and Noble.

On page 196, McManus made a rather salient point that jumped right off the page at me. He said that the “only way you are going to stop being pulled around by destructive desires and passions is to allow God to awaken those passions and desires that will bring your life to wholeness and health and make you fully alive.”

His point is that we are constructed to passionately pursue. And when we lock in on passions of the flesh, of the world, we make a straight line to self destruction and are owned by them. The only way to break that cycle is to replace those earthly passions with Godly ones. Replace the dark fire with a bright one. My immediate inclination when I’m dealing with sin is to remove it somehow. I think what McManus is saying here is that instead of removing sin, we need to replace it with something more powerful, something from God.  Without fire, we grow cold.

I once again encountered that steel-blue eyeball this week as I was digging through some piles in search of a folder for work. It lured me in again, and I had retraced about 20 pages before I realized what I was doing. I haven’t pressure tested the overall theology of Mr. McManus, but I’m a big fan of how this book motivates me to get my act together and to light a fire.  Just beneath the eyeball, it simply says, “The future is waiting within you.” That creates a tangle of hope and frustration within me as well, as I seek out the specific path that awaits (within) me.