Book review number four: The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, by Curtis and Eldredge. We have the workbooks and it has been a great experience to work through them together as a couple. Here are a few quotes from the book: Humans were made for more than the mundane and drab; instead, we were made for joy and gloriousness and beauty. Thus, the standard perception (by most people, including many Christians) of Christianity as a list of rules and regulations and standards of behavior is misguided at best and harmful at worst. Conservative churches teach that God wants obedience, or sacrifice, or adherence to the right doctrines, or morality. Therapeutic churches suggest that God is after our contentment, happiness, or self-actualization. These are not God’s primary concerns. What he is after is us- our laughter, our tears, our dreams, our fears, our heart of hearts. We are created in the image of God, or more precisely, as a reflection of the Trinity. The Trinity is a community, and so to be made in its image means we are relational at our core. Our creation is by love, in love, for love. We were created for intimacy with God. The story of God and humanity is a romance where God is pursuing us, and we only need to turn to God. Curtis and Eldredge talk about the ways we are wounded as children and young adults and about how we learn to cope with those wounds by shutting down or developing behaviors that protect us. The result of this self-protection is often a less than vivid life of survival, rather than one of glory. Instead of hiding our wounds and acting as if they don’t exist, they urge us to carry them to God, the only One who can truly heal them.
The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God
