book review #5: sex God

book review #5: sex God, by rob bell
exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality

i don't really know how to sum up this book in a nutshell, except to say that i LOVED it. it was much different than the last rob bell book i read, and i liked it more entirely. the title definitely draws the eye, as you know in today's world, sex sells. but, what the book is really saying is that sexuality is actually about God. it's about something deeper, something behind it all, that leads us to talking about how we were made (like God) and about the God who made us.

it talks about God's nature, how he is loving and how he is an extreme risk taker. God took a huge risk in making us the way we are, because he gave us freedom. He gave us the freedom to choose to love him in return, or not to, and in that process, his heart gets broken over and over and over again, just as ours is broken when love isn't given to us in return.

it says that love is about giving up control and surrendering the desire to control the other person. if we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship. this explains why God, who IS love (God is the picture of love, the actual definition of it) stripped himself of all of his power and authority, and decided to meet us on our level, in our world, in the form of Jesus. "Jesus always chooses the path of love, not power." God could have chosen to meet with us on his level, where we would have to strive and reach for him, but instead he chose to come down to us, to humble himself.

my favorite part of the book stresses our likenesses to Christ, and how we can identify with him.

here's a (rather large) excerpt:

"Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, "God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts."

The cross is God's way of taking away all our accusations, excuses, and arguments. The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, "Me too."

This can transform our experience of heartbreak. Instead of being something that distances us from God, causing us to question, "Where are you?" every poem by a lover spurned, every song sung with an ache, every movie with a gut-wrenching scene, every late-night conversation and empty box of kleenex are glimpses into the life of God.

Our first need is for people not to fix our problems. People who charge in and have all the answers and try to make things right without first joining us in our pain generally annoy us, or worse yet, they push us away. They have nothing to give us. The God that Jesus points us to is not a god who stands at a distance, wringing his hands and saying, "If only you'd listened to me."

This is the God who holds out his hands and asks, "Would you like to see the holes where the nails went? Would that help?"

It's the place we find we're not alone, where we find strength to go on. Not a strength that comes from within ourselves, but a strength that comes from God. The God who keeps going. Who keeps offering. Who keeps loving. Who keeps risking.

A God who knows what it's like.

the cross is where we present our wounds to God and say, "Here, you take them."

Our healing begins when we participate in the suffering of God. When we don't avoid it but enter into it, and in the process enter into the life of God. When we see our pain not as separating us from but connecting us to our maker.

And in this connection there's always the chance that we'll find a reason to risk again.

If God can continue to risk [his heartbreak on us], then maybe we can too."


i give this book a 5 out of 5 stars (didn't know i was going on a star ranking system, huh? i just started it right now) a must read. there were plenty of scriptural references to satisfy my curiosity in backing up the arguments, but not too many that it bogged the book down or made it a slow read. i think the topic is relevant for everyone, it kept my attention, and made me think a little too. read it.