I read this book a few years ago (Messy Spirituality. Michael Yaconelli. Zondervan) and really enjoyed it because, looking back, at the time I was a raging, careless sinner (not that I am not currently a sinner, I just care now) and the book made me feel better about my acts of moral turpitude while still telling myself I loved Christ.
I have dug my way through my small collection of works by Lewis and Chesterton in the recent years, and in looking for something a little less 'heavy', I decided to pick Messy Spirituality back up and give it another go around, only this time the lenses through which I will read it are tinted a different color then last time. See, I look back at those years (I call them the Lost Years) and I realize while the popular description for those years from a typical Christian would sound something 'struggling with sin' or 'searching for Jesus' I think it needs to sound more like 'selfish abuser of grace who took great pride in mastering the art of manipulation'... or something like that. So now I approach this book that made me feel better about my 'spirituality' while being in the midst of sin that I sought out with the question of "is the way this book made me feel about sin ok?"
I am willing to admit that I may have completely missed the authors goal in writing this book. But what I took away from it the first time I read it was this: It is ok to have a messy life, to fall in and out of sin, because God still loves you! Look at Noah, a drunk who got got naked, David, a murderer and cheater, Abraham, gave his wife to another man for sex so he wouldn't get killed! And I get it. I understand. We are not perfect! Jesus loved, and still loves, the unlovable! It was the hypocrites and high ups that didn't see that Jesus came for the hurt, the lost, and the hungry. But, I went away from this book feeling like it never came back full circle in that a person struggling would read about 'Messy Spiritually' and feel content with his/her ragged, inconsistent relationship with Christ and feel content with less than what I feel is what Christ intended for us.
So, I will read this book again, and when I am done, I'll go back and see if this post was completely unnecessary. Maybe Mike hit the nail on the head and I missed it the first time. I just don't want anyone getting a watered down version of how we are suppose to be 'in the world, not of the world' and how we can live a life on the strait and narrow, continually seeking Jesus, never claiming perfection, but claiming to have found the one 'constant' in this messy world that saves us from ourselves and brings order our messy lives. Is our goal to stay one 'level' above our cultures moral decline or is it to not drop below the bar Christ set for us? Is spirituality messy? I don't think there is one definite answer but I guess I'll see what I find out.
