Brennan Manning, Well Done. 1934-2013

The Ragamuffin Gospel.

Ruthless Trust.

Abba's Child.

A Furious Longing for God.

The Signature of Jesus.

The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus.

The above 21 words are a few of the titles of books written by my all-time favorite author. Brennan Manning by name. Author by appointed gift. Beloved ragamuffin. Today, he went home to be with Jesus.

Brennan Manning 1934-2013

Before I read a single word of Brennan's heart, mine searched to know and understand a God full of a grace that I had been taught about, but had yet to experience. Struggling to come to terms with the own darkness and the depths of sin in my own life, I found myself weeping while reading a book, for the first time ever. The title of this book was "Lion and Lamb: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus." I haven't been the same since.

Reading his book, I experienced something I never had prior. Or if I did, I never fully took the time to appreciate the effect it would have on my life. Brennan wrote very openly about being a Christian, a man of faith, but also about his struggle with alcoholism, pride, lust and accepting that God could love him and accept him with all those weakness surrounding his pursuit of Him. He struggled with self-hatred. With making up lies to protect his self-righteous imposter. With acceptance.

If it was out there to be struggled with, he did. And he talked openly about it in his books. And in his later books, he admits to maybe not even fully being honest about the condition of his spiritual heart in his previous books.

For what felt like the first time in my life, when I read Brennan's books, I felt like it was okay to admit personal struggle in the Christian life. It was okay to wrestle with the belief of truth and the living out of it. And it was okay to allow myself to be accepted by God exactly as I was, not needing to be perfectly polished to be accepted by Him.

"When I am honest, I admit that I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt. I hope and I get discouraged. I love and I have. I feel bad about feeling good. I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games."  (Ragamuffin Gospel)

When reading his books, I almost felt violated. He wrote about things that I had built massive fortresses around my heart to protect from anyone ever knowing. Yet there they were, laid bare for the world to see as if he took pages from my journals and published them for everyone to see how dark I had allowed my heart to become. But wait....this was him. A fellow ragamuffin. Someone broken by their own ability to sin, scared by how easy it came, and desperately longing to know and feel that there was a smidgen of grace left in the heart of God to say "Come on back, prodigal. I'm still here waiting for you."

"For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change. When Jesus said 'Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy burdened', He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged and disheartened along the way. This is a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Jesus. He had no romantic notion of the cost of discipleship. He knew that following Him would be as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love. He knew that physical pain, the loss of loved ones, failure, loneliness, rejection, abandonment and betrayal would sap our spirits, that the day would come when faith would no longer offer any drive, reassurance or comfort; that prayer would lack any sense of reality or progress...."  

Whoa. That's real talk, right there, Brennan. That's not the stuff I was used to hearing. I always expected myself to be a warrior of faith, but now here he was, writing about the child underneath the armor, scared and lonely and unprepared for the battle I knew nothing about. Real life battles that yes, even Christians fight. Real life sins that, yes, even Christians wrestle with. Real life garbage that, yes...I was trying to sort through in my own putrid life.

Sorting through my feelings and thoughts of shame, regret, grace and forgiveness and what it all meant, I was met overwhelmingly with the obstacle of wanting to hide it all. When sin is exposed and you are consequently the subject of gossip and the punchline of jokes, even in Christian circles, the fear of judgment from others is a debilitating thing. I've been there. I'm not quite sure I've recovered from that road, either. There are many times I tip-toe around, hoping people don't learn about my past or shrinking back into myself when I hear them discuss the same sins in other people. I pray, even when I smell the stench of judgment coming from my own mind, "Lord, please never let me forget where I came from and the amount of grace I needed to come out from that place." Part of my recovery and ability to come to terms with my sinfulness came because of Brennan's books and his willingness to talk about his own clenched fists and weak heart. He offered me the permission to heal.

"Healing becomes the opportunity to pass off to another human being what I have received from the Lord Jesus. Namely, His unconditional acceptance of me as I am, not as I should be. He loves me whether in a state of grace or disgrace, whether I live up to the lofty expectations of His gospel or I don't. He comes to me where I live and loves me AS I AM....Will we let the healing power of the risen Jesus flow through us to reach and touch others, so that they may dream and fight and bear and run where the brave dare not go?"


Be daring enough to be different, humble enough to admit mistakes, wild enough to be burnt by the fire of love and real enough to make others see how phony you are."

RIP Brennan Manning. 1934-2013. Well done.

As I Am. 

Hmmmm.....that would be a cool tattoo.