Wrestling with God [Paperback]

Rick Diamond (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

WRESTLING WITH GOD

You're hungry to know God. You want to encounter Him. You can feel it in your bones that there’s more to life, but everywhere you’ve looked to fill the void you feel has left you empty still: Culture. Career. Things. Even church. Your soul's stomach continues to growl.

This book will satisfy that hunger. Wrestling With God is raw. It’s about getting outside the confines of dogmatic religion and encountering something real. It is a guidebook into the rich journey of surrender and exploration that can lead to a deep trust in a radically loving ­ but never tame ­ God.

Warning: This book will mess you up. But that’s a good thing. The end of religion is the beginning of relationship.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rick Diamond is pastor of discipleship at Riverbend Church in Austin, Texas. He is a preacher, teacher and speaker, having led hundreds of groups in retreats, classes, and workshops. He serves as an adjunct faculty member at Drew University in the Doctor of Ministry program. He also writes and speaks at regional and national conferences about the opportunities facing the 21st century church.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

This book is about the spiritual journey. Specifically, it has been guided by my own walk with God, which is strange and amazing and wonderful, and by my discussions and sharing with a few hundred other travelers along the paths. I’ve also been guided in my thinking by the writings and insights of the pilgrims who were here ahead of us -- the Christian mystics, the saints, and the great fathers and mothers of the faith. And I’m also led by my own skepticism and my own awareness of how big the world and God are, and how small religion is.

I don’t know where you are, whether you’re a Christian or not, whether you believe in or have rejected religion, whether you know God or don’t. But for me, I’m deeply distrustful of and unimpressed by organized Christian religion. Part of that is because I was raised in three different denominations and was punctuated by disappointments and frustrations. Part of why I feel that way is my having worked in religious settings for the past decade. And part of my distrust is because I have studied the way churches work and have worked through the centuries. The Church has done great good, encouraged moral behavior and charity, and has done its best to point people to what it has understood about God. And yet, the Church is often -- maybe even usually -- corrupt, self-serving, and mostly concerned about defending its own boundaries and safety. It has hurt people in countless ways, either through its own sickness and dysfunction, or simply by setting the standard way too low for what people could become if God were given some room. In some ways, it’s not Christianity’s fault; it’s made up of people, like anything else, and people are broken and dysfunctional, and to be a healthy person, you understand, and have compassion, and move on. But some days you think, You guys say you’re the ones who know the ultimate truth, and you’re arguing over really stupid things. Get over it.

And yet, even with all of the brokenness of the church overall, I’m always hopeful about what Jesus called The Kingdom of God, which is the work that God’s Spirit does all the time -- and the transformation that can happen when the Spirit is allowed to breathe. God’s persistence and hopefulness amaze me and tell me to continue to believe in things I thought weren’t possible. And it’s important to make the distinction that the Kingdom of God is much, much bigger than the Christian Church. God is in all of creation, all of that mysterious stuff out there we don’t even know the first thing about or understand, working in all of human history. God isn’t restricted by our denominations or definitions. God is the "other" that we’re longing for -- and that God is very real and very present, regardless of how we small we’ve attempted to make God. So the work I do, and what I hope I’m doing in this book, is looking forward, past religious experience or denominational doctrine. Those boxes are too small to put God in.

I can’t begin to fathom anything for sure about what God is. What I am convinced of is that there is Someone who is larger than everyday human experience, Someone who wants to know me, Someone who is already present with me. I think that’s what the real heart of being a follower of Christ has always been about. So that’s what I wish for you. I hope that your life will be made more meaningful because you are curious, listening, feeling; I believe that what you’ll find is God’s love. It takes effort and openness to let love happen in us. We’re not great at it. But love is persistent, and doesn’t give up easily. That’s why this book is about wrestling.

So may God’s love go with you on your journey. Wait -- that’s not right. May you find that God’s love has always and will always be there, right where you are at this moment, and may you become a person who knows he or she is God’s beloved.

Rick Diamond

Product Details

• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: Relevant Books (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971457670
• ISBN-13: 978-0971457676
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,086,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A non-believer believes in this book, December 21, 2007

By 

Charles D. Johnson (Austin TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wrestling with God (Paperback)

I am an atheist. For the past year I have attended bible study at Journey, the church founded by Rick Diamond after he left Riverbend Church and after he wrote this book. One might think that I'm biased, and I am to a degree, pulled in one direction by my atheism and in the opposite direction by my respect and admiration for Rick, whose whole mission in life is Love. I'm not even sure what Love is, but I'm hanging out at bible study, listening attentively, hoping that I'll learn.

So it is with mixed feelings that I read this book, cover to cover in just a few short sittings. It's not a long book, 172 pages, easy and fun to read and sometimes funny. But there are plenty of passages that really make you question your life. As an atheist, one might rightly say that I have no purpose, or at least haven't discovered it yet. As an atheist, I'm not sure that "Purpose" really exists apart from the wishes of our own egos. And I'm not sure that Rick's book really answers the question of what our purpose should be. But, in fairness, that's not what Wrestling With God was trying to accomplish, in my opinion.

The concept of "desert" is very big in this book. Wrestling With God uses the struggles of biblical characters (Jesus, Moses, Jacob, and others), characters from pop culture and literature (Luke Skywalker, Hamlet, etc), and real people, to teach us about how the desert can cleanse our spirit. The desert is a metaphor for struggle. It's a place where we are alone, where we don't want to be, but yet are there because of circumstance (foreclosure, cancer diagnosis, loss of a loved one). The desert is where Jesus fasts for 40 days and 40 nights, and where He is tempted. Luke Skywalker is tempted by the dark side of the force. Even though I am an atheist, I very much believe in the struggles of life. Maybe I'm missing something by not believing in God and the divinity of Jesus, and that's why I'm attending bible study and reading books such as this one.

The desert forces you to strip down to your bare nature, to find what is most important to you and to tear all the rest away. Your survival sometimes depends on it, both your physical and spiritual survival. I've been in the desert a couple of times in my life, and it is at those times that I turn to books such as Wrestling With God, and to people such as Rick Diamond, to help me survive. This book has helped me see that I need to start to focus on what's most important in my life and, most importantly, to find a purpose, a purpose that will help lead me out of the desert.

I recommend this book to believers and non-believers alike.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's about time..., January 18, 2006

By 

Linguaphile - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wrestling with God (Paperback)

It's about time somebody took the ideas in the Matrix and ran with them. Kudos. There's an amazing wealth of metaphor in that movie.

I appreciated Diamond's honesty and openness, and I heartily resonanted with much he had to say.

What I was left with at the end of the book was, "Ok, I'm awake, I'm real, I'm alive. I have been for a while. Now what?" I suppose I was looking for something to take me beyond the "awakeness."

Overall, a good read. At times a little fast and loose with theology. But a good call to waking for those unawakened. I would like to see something now that addresses those who have been awakened, something that moves us to the next level. But I suppose that part is up to us. And God.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars out of the BOX!!!, July 16, 2003

By 

Chet Thomas "texaschet" (Texas - Gods Vacation Spot) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wrestling with God (Paperback)

If you would like to read something without all the usual platitudes, that actually gets you to thinking about your relationship with God and all the stuff that goes with it, then you gotta read this book! Its like having a conversation with one of the great thinkers of christianity at this time. Way to go Rick!