A handful of years ago I stumbled across a book that changed my perspective on my faith, which in turn has changed the trajectory of my life. I like books like that. This particular one was James Bryan Smith’s “The Good and Beautiful God.”
The premise of “The Good and Beautiful God” is that Jesus had the most intimate and true understanding of who his Father was, and that if we learned how to see God as Jesus did, we wouldn’t be able to keep ourselves from falling in love with that God. That was a very appealing promise, and the more I read, the more I felt that Smith was delivering on that promise. His book shook me out of my misconceptions I’d been believing and living out for most of my life, misconceptions that left me feeling disconnected and estranged from God despite my strict obedience to him.
If you feel like Christianity hasn’t really been working for you, or if you’ve stuck with it but sometimes struggle to believe that God is good, trustworthy, generous, the embodiment of love, holy, or self-sacrificing, then I’d highly recommend this book. Give “The Good and Beautiful God” a chance to show you a better, clearer picture of who he is.