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Chasing a God You Don't Want to Catch
This is a book designed to deal with the unspoken lies many Christians struggle with on a daily basis--lies that ultimately keep us from pursuing a deep connection and friendship with God. Christians are quick to say we want "more" of God, sing songs inviting Him to have total control, and appear like we are pursuing Him. But the truth for most people is they don't really want to catch Him. Even a cursory glance at the Bible tells us that the closer one gets to God, the more dangerous He becomes. His demands get more intense. His punishments more severe. His expectations stricter. So, we engage in an exhausting dance of pursuit (so we don't feel like spiritual losers) and walls (to keep Him at a safe distance). Faith ceases to be a relationship of intimacy, and instead turns into a tug-of-war where we simply try to white knuckle it until we get to heaven.
But this isn't what God intended. When Jesus tells us that He no longer calls us servants, but instead friends, He is talking about real relationship. And while the lies we've believed for so long make God seem frightening, untrustworthy, and distant, the truth is He is the most loving, gentle, forgiving Person in the Universe. His ultimate desire is deep friendship with you, but that can only be found in a two-way street of trust.
In this book we'll look at a wide variety of lies even life-long Christians believe about God, and we will attempt to dive past those lies and see the true nature of God's heart and character based on stories in the Bible where God and man intersect.
It's also a book that, quite frankly, is designed to be fun to read.
God isn't boring, so a book about Him shouldn't be either.
But this isn't what God intended. When Jesus tells us that He no longer calls us servants, but instead friends, He is talking about real relationship. And while the lies we've believed for so long make God seem frightening, untrustworthy, and distant, the truth is He is the most loving, gentle, forgiving Person in the Universe. His ultimate desire is deep friendship with you, but that can only be found in a two-way street of trust.
In this book we'll look at a wide variety of lies even life-long Christians believe about God, and we will attempt to dive past those lies and see the true nature of God's heart and character based on stories in the Bible where God and man intersect.
It's also a book that, quite frankly, is designed to be fun to read.
God isn't boring, so a book about Him shouldn't be either.
- GenresChristian
208 pages, Paperback
Published May 12, 2020
15 people are currently reading
1048 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 8, 2020
Normally books of the Christian persuasion are met with a little resistance when it comes to being reviewed because they tend to fall into one of two camps… either horrible or really fantastic. Some books can be so didactic that all enjoyment for spending time reading to gain a better education on something God-related is taken away and the emotional feel is one of heaviness and lethargy. Or they can be so easy to read they are as welcome as like vanilla ice-cream on a hot summers day in that they make their teaching points without ever being preachy. Thankfully Chasing a God You Don’t Want to Catch is like a double scoop on a waffle cone and sweet sprinkles added to the fun.
We all carry around in our hearts and minds images and understandings of God that are wrong. Not because we have been taught bad theology on purpose by ministers who faithfully preach to their congregations every Sunday. No. These ideas develop because of our own misunderstandings, our own twisted ideas of what the bible means and we never are brave enough to admit to our concerns, our issues for fear of appearing lower on the ladder of faith than we think we are supposed to be on.
But Wilson is a brave spiritual warrior who has laid bare all of his suspicions and anxieties about who God the Father is and taken the time to research, pray and work through the problems to find insights and teachings that are like a breath of fresh air. He is challenging and encouraging all at the same time, with the constant refrain that God is love and that there is a way for the believer to have a stronger friendship with God. Yes. Imagine it… a friendship with God. Wilson takes away from the foreboding and sombre image of God and turns it on its head, urging us to develop a relationship as close as a best friend and he teaches the reader how to strive towards this goal, encouraging the reasons as to why such effort is worthy of our time.
And he manages to do it with more than a touch of humour. In this era when bands such as BTS are taking over the world of pop music and world tours feature heavily in the modern-day vernacular, sentences such as “Jesus is on his three-year kingdom world tour, selling out fields and meadows everywhere…….” Is witty and attention-grabbing. Never once is the reader made to feel that reading this book is like taking a dose of strong medicine that tastes terrible but is good for you. Rather it is as if given with a spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down (thanks Mary Poppins for that clever technique!) that makes the learning easy on the soul. In twelve easily read chapters Wilson takes us through such topics of being afraid to be really sold out to God because of a fear that He will take us away from our loved ones to make us a missionary in deepest darkest Africa, or the question of why bad things happening to good people being compared to someone not winning the lottery. And he explores the idea of why God allows things to get bad and appearing to swoop in at the 11th hour to save the day as His way of making Himself more important. You know, the kinds of questions we all think but are too scared to verbalise to each other.
This book is clever, well thought out, packed with biblical confirmation for the teaching and is open and honest about the struggles and journey Wilson has taken personally to get to the point of having a genuine friendship with God. And he saves the biggest kicker for the last few lines which leaves the reader pausing to think of the consequences and importance of what they have just read. It's funny, it's powerful and biblically sound. It isn’t overly long and isn’t filled with sentences that only your theology professor is going to understand. Its deep truths are desperately needing to be heard by the church at large. Even non-Christians would derive an enlargement of their understanding of God from reading this book, if for no other reason but to unlearn all the bunkum we Christians have espoused about God, unwittingly painting Him to be some stern, judgemental dictator, rather than the loving God who desperately wants to have a true relationship with all His children.
Highly recommended.
We all carry around in our hearts and minds images and understandings of God that are wrong. Not because we have been taught bad theology on purpose by ministers who faithfully preach to their congregations every Sunday. No. These ideas develop because of our own misunderstandings, our own twisted ideas of what the bible means and we never are brave enough to admit to our concerns, our issues for fear of appearing lower on the ladder of faith than we think we are supposed to be on.
But Wilson is a brave spiritual warrior who has laid bare all of his suspicions and anxieties about who God the Father is and taken the time to research, pray and work through the problems to find insights and teachings that are like a breath of fresh air. He is challenging and encouraging all at the same time, with the constant refrain that God is love and that there is a way for the believer to have a stronger friendship with God. Yes. Imagine it… a friendship with God. Wilson takes away from the foreboding and sombre image of God and turns it on its head, urging us to develop a relationship as close as a best friend and he teaches the reader how to strive towards this goal, encouraging the reasons as to why such effort is worthy of our time.
And he manages to do it with more than a touch of humour. In this era when bands such as BTS are taking over the world of pop music and world tours feature heavily in the modern-day vernacular, sentences such as “Jesus is on his three-year kingdom world tour, selling out fields and meadows everywhere…….” Is witty and attention-grabbing. Never once is the reader made to feel that reading this book is like taking a dose of strong medicine that tastes terrible but is good for you. Rather it is as if given with a spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down (thanks Mary Poppins for that clever technique!) that makes the learning easy on the soul. In twelve easily read chapters Wilson takes us through such topics of being afraid to be really sold out to God because of a fear that He will take us away from our loved ones to make us a missionary in deepest darkest Africa, or the question of why bad things happening to good people being compared to someone not winning the lottery. And he explores the idea of why God allows things to get bad and appearing to swoop in at the 11th hour to save the day as His way of making Himself more important. You know, the kinds of questions we all think but are too scared to verbalise to each other.
This book is clever, well thought out, packed with biblical confirmation for the teaching and is open and honest about the struggles and journey Wilson has taken personally to get to the point of having a genuine friendship with God. And he saves the biggest kicker for the last few lines which leaves the reader pausing to think of the consequences and importance of what they have just read. It's funny, it's powerful and biblically sound. It isn’t overly long and isn’t filled with sentences that only your theology professor is going to understand. Its deep truths are desperately needing to be heard by the church at large. Even non-Christians would derive an enlargement of their understanding of God from reading this book, if for no other reason but to unlearn all the bunkum we Christians have espoused about God, unwittingly painting Him to be some stern, judgemental dictator, rather than the loving God who desperately wants to have a true relationship with all His children.
Highly recommended.
May 13, 2023
I was really enthralled by the casual nature of writing in the first bit but about 4 chapters in it seemed like each chapter was the same format with different words. Good intentions for sure but just a little too repetitive
September 13, 2020
I received an ARC from Emanate Books, via NetGalley. This review is my opinion.
From chapter one I knew this was a great book, a must-read for everyone. Especially if you grew up since young age in church. With a funny and interesting approach, Darren Wilson takes us to his own journey to demolish all his wrong assumptions about God. This book is so honest, and right now we need this. Many of us struggle with praying more or doing more, how to have a better relationship with God. But how do we get there? The truth is that fear and anxiety due to not being where according to others we are supposed to be in our service to God and ultimately to believe the lies that we will reject it by Him. Each one of this chapter Darren Wilson teaches us how we need to stop using praying, fasting, and worshiping more than to be close to God but to accomplish our goals.
I like what he said, “Transformation must be the goal of our faith”. The importance of understanding that yes, there will be a judgment day. But our main focus should be to let God’s love known and that will change other’s people lives. The importance of being humble and how God could never be fooled about how our heart really is. This book is a challenge to take a leap of faith to a real and trustworthy God who loves us, who is in control(even when he is silent), even when it hurts and maybe it doesn’t make sense a God who wants to have a real relationship with everyone, I think this book could change many lives, not because is magical. But I can see the story of a man, who in the midst of his humanity and struggle has surrendered all to God. We can learn from him. Great book!
From chapter one I knew this was a great book, a must-read for everyone. Especially if you grew up since young age in church. With a funny and interesting approach, Darren Wilson takes us to his own journey to demolish all his wrong assumptions about God. This book is so honest, and right now we need this. Many of us struggle with praying more or doing more, how to have a better relationship with God. But how do we get there? The truth is that fear and anxiety due to not being where according to others we are supposed to be in our service to God and ultimately to believe the lies that we will reject it by Him. Each one of this chapter Darren Wilson teaches us how we need to stop using praying, fasting, and worshiping more than to be close to God but to accomplish our goals.
I like what he said, “Transformation must be the goal of our faith”. The importance of understanding that yes, there will be a judgment day. But our main focus should be to let God’s love known and that will change other’s people lives. The importance of being humble and how God could never be fooled about how our heart really is. This book is a challenge to take a leap of faith to a real and trustworthy God who loves us, who is in control(even when he is silent), even when it hurts and maybe it doesn’t make sense a God who wants to have a real relationship with everyone, I think this book could change many lives, not because is magical. But I can see the story of a man, who in the midst of his humanity and struggle has surrendered all to God. We can learn from him. Great book!
September 30, 2020
3.5. I think the strength of this book comes from the publisher description and the authors addressing it: "He challenges us to face the things many Christians struggle with but are too afraid to talk about because everyone else seems to have this faith thing figured out. He believes God isn’t afraid of our questions, doubts, fears, or even our anger. The secret to peace and friendship with God lies in understanding who He really is." I think it's an unbox God from a personal view, and sometimes that can come off as more biographical that theological? There are good truths in this book and it deals with some of the common cultural questions from non-Christians about free will and bad things happening to good people. I didn't know he was a filmmaker and just picked up the book based on the title alone as part of the VT reading challenge, book about Christian living.
April 22, 2025
I bought this book on clearance for $1, which is a stunning deal considering how terrific the content is. Wilson blows up standard church-y views of God by really digging into the Bible. It's like trying to imagine how it felt to be sitting in a movie theater watching The Wizard of Oz in 1939 and being stunned and amazed when the screen switches from sepia to Technicolor; if you've grown up in Sunday School and church, you've gotten so used to the Bible as you've heard it that you don't even really see it anymore. Wilson tells the stories and makes them pop, fulfilling Psalm 119:18: "Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law."
May 15, 2020
I’m fairly familiar with Darren Wilson and his films so I was interested to pick up his book. I think I was hoping it was more of a personal experience with the making of his films. But it was largely in the self-help sprinkled with personal stories variety. I, personally, feel like that space is pretty cluttered with voices and that this book didn’t have anything new to say on the matter. So, for anyone who has read a reasonable amount of Christian non-fiction in the last few years, this book may not be worth it to read.
However, if you’re new to church it may peak your interest.
However, if you’re new to church it may peak your interest.
July 22, 2022
Good Book on the Nature of God
This book was really encouraging. The author has dedicated his life to documenting and sharing how God is at work in miraculous ways (some of the stories are crazy) and much of this came about because of his own hesitations about the character of God. The authors openness and struggle are apparent but even moreso apparent is how God came alive to Him through the written word and the living word.
This book was really encouraging. The author has dedicated his life to documenting and sharing how God is at work in miraculous ways (some of the stories are crazy) and much of this came about because of his own hesitations about the character of God. The authors openness and struggle are apparent but even moreso apparent is how God came alive to Him through the written word and the living word.
October 21, 2021
You think you have a relationship with God?
In this book, you will get a true picture of GOD and how you relate to Him and vice versa. Having finished the book, I am saving it to return to read it at a future date. Speaking in an easy vernacular that is relative to today and non accusatory. Good read!
In this book, you will get a true picture of GOD and how you relate to Him and vice versa. Having finished the book, I am saving it to return to read it at a future date. Speaking in an easy vernacular that is relative to today and non accusatory. Good read!
September 26, 2021
3.5 stars
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews