A Game of Hope

Soul Print by Mark Batterson

The last review I wrote I referenced the movie “Tommy Boy” with the famous line from Chris Farley, “Oh! That’s going to leave a mark.”  Well this book talks about the marks life leaves on us and how they can lead us to our destiny’s. I like the quote he begins the book with from C.S. Lewis, I mean how can you go wrong quoting Lewis? The last words of the quote are, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”  And that is the premise of the book that we are all unique in the way that we are shaped by how we live this life.  The joys and the pains of life shape us and make us who we are and even why we are the way we are. 

He does a nice job of using the life of David as the back drop of his book and the examples we have with David that show how his life was shaped even as he served his father as a shepherd boy.  How he could draw on having in his past killed a lion and a bear defending his sheep and use that to give him the courage to face Goliath…. In his introduction to the book Mark does a real nice job connecting Michelangelo, and his sculpting of the statue of David.  Michelangelo looked at the plain block of stone and said the figure of David was in there, he just had to remove the excess stone that was hiding it.  Great image to help us see how God sees us as He removes the excess baggage of our lives so that the real you can be seen.  His next image was one of the best I have ever run across as he described walking into the Gallery where the masterpiece “David” is enshrined.  As you walk around there are many unfinished pieces on exhibit, with an arm sticking out here or a leg over there and you get the real sense of what an artist like Michelangelo meant when he said David was already in the stone, he just had to free him… These unfinished works gave the impression of s person trapped inside the stone and waiting for someone to come along and free them from their captivity.  Then Mark asks the question, “Have you ever felt like a captive? You can’t seem to break free from habitual sins that have held you back and held you down? A dream God conceived in your spirit years ago hasn’t taken shape the way you wanted it to? You know where you want to be, what you want to do, and where you want to go, but you can’t seem to get there.  I have no idea where you’re stuck or for how long you’ve been stuck.  But I do know God wants to finish what He started.”  He ends that section with this thought, “At the end of the day, God isn’t going to ask, “Why weren’t you more like Billy Graham or Mother Teresa?”  He won’t even ask,”Why weren’t you more like David?”  God is going to ask, “Why weren’t you more like you?”  

The book begins…Helping us to see that life shapes us and makes us to be who we were created to be.  What may seem like bad luck may instead have saved our lives or what seemed to be so heavy and hard at the time we were going through our struggle has now equipped us to minister to someone else or even to face the giant in front of us.  If I could get this book into the hands of anyone it would be in the hands it would be into the hands of pastors and leaders and I would direct them to Scene 7 where Mark tackles the whole Bathsheba debacle.  Recently I have witnessed so many gifted leaders falling and falling hard just like David, in an act of adultery, sexual misconduct.. Mark writes,”I am no longer surprised by sin.” And none of us really are but when leaders fall right in front of us and we wonder what were they thinking?  He says, ‘I am no longer surprised by sin.  What does surprise me is the person with the rare courage to confess.”  I think he does a real nice job here reminding us the hiding stuff only makes it stronger but confessing begins the dying process.  The sin begins to lose its’ grip if we will confess our weakness and ask for help.  Too many have dies horrific spiritual deaths by handling their stuff on their own, without ever confessing that they have a need... Then by the time they do confess it is a shipwreck, which God can re-build but the damage is deep and many destiny’s unfulfilled.  Leaders please read this chapter.

Then one more quick comment and it is on a statement he makes that seems not so important but it hit me hard, very hard. He talks about naming his kids and then on pg. 150 he talks about nicknames which seem pretty innocent until he says this: “Different nicknames reveal different dimensions of our relationships with them. (Friends, kids etc.) But most significant, nicknames reveal what we see in them.”  As parents and leaders it just struck me how a simple thing like a nick name could either promote a healthy self image or in the other side of the fence create a bad self image…We have to grow through both but I have to think having positive things spoken over you, especially at a young age has to have a great impact.  I can remember growing up and the nick names my dad would use and I realized later that they all pointed to me being overweight...that is what he saw…or me not being so smart….trust me they left marks.  Think about it…

There is much more in the book and as I finished it I realized I would recommend it to others because it brings hope to many who might not have hope and reminds us we are the clay and God is the potter and He is not done yet.  

Bill                         

       

did not leave a mark!

One of my favorite movies is Tommy Boy with Chris Farley. On numerous occasions through out the movie he would bump his head and then say, " Oh that's going to leave a mark!"  I would hope a book like "Under the Overpass" would have been like that for me, that it would have left a mark but it really did not for me.  Now I have to say this, the book was delivered to my house mid-afternoon on a Friday and I finished the book late morning Saturday, so it was a good read and very interesting.  Just did not leave a mark, if you get my drift.

When I ordered the book from WaterBrook Multnomah my first thought had been back to a book I read decades ago titled " Black Like Me", by author John Howard Griffin and I was pleased to find a quote from the book in the first chapter. " The best way to find out if we had second-class citizens and what their plight was , would be to become one of them."  That really is the thought process of this book, Mike Yankoski and his friend Sam enter into the world of the homeless.  The difficult part of this process and Mike is very open about this, is that he was coming out in five months or less if he needed to...Most homeless do not have that option in their back pocket and many realize the streets are their home, forever...

So anyway I think my big disappointment and why it did not leave a mark is there did not seem to be any real relationships with the homeless made just kind of drive by acknowledgements.. The idea was Mike and Sam would move to another location after one month in a city so they did five cities to see the difference.  I wonder what would have happened if they stayed in one place or at least one place longer. Would they have actually been accepted into that homeless community and made long time friends over acquaintances?  Don't know.

Have the usual mixed bag of church experiences which I would have expected without going to the streets... In some, the guys were extremely blessed and cared for in others more rejection, which again I would have expected that. Nothing real new there.

Great story about a church in the Phoenix area where they were chased off the property one Saturday morning as a church breakfast was being served. A little aggravated they decided to visit the church the next morning and at the end of the service the same guy who chased them off the property the day before came rushing up to them.  Bracing for the worst they were taken by surprise as the guy greeted them with a big hug and tears running down his face.  He apologized over and over for the disrespect he had shown them and told them how the Lord had really convicted him after they had left.  Then the kicker....he was the church homeless outreach director...after a moment of awkward silence they all busted out laughing...

Another character worth noting was a street person in San Diego, named Doug.  Doug was a believer who struggled with alcoholism and the brief look at his struggle to be a good Christian but he cannot get over alcohol and it tears him up.  They are together when one of Doug's friends is confronted by the police and handcuffed.  The guy breaks free and heads to the water...he wades in deeper and deeper with his hands tied behind his back. It looks like he is going to drown for sure and Doug is in tears on the shore..Finally he runs into the surf going further and further until all you can see is two heads bobbing on the serf.  Finally they turn towards the shore and the two walk in together and the friend is taken by the police.. Doug the homeless alcoholic just saved his friends life. He weeps on shore and says, “It’s so hard for me to live like a Christian. I've been drunk all day."  You know I am not overlooking the drinking problem but I have to look at this guy and think he may get it better than many of us.  He risked his life to save a friend.

At the end of the book Mike has a list of 4 things we could do to get involved with the homeless around us and again I have to say nothing real new here. 1. Volunteer at the homeless shelter near you. 2. Go downtown with friends (not alone) and buy coffee or take out food to share with a homeless person and maybe even sit down and talk. 3. Cold out?  Gather coats, hats and gloves and hand them out. 4. Become a spokes person for your church body on behalf of the homeless...

So I would recommend the book as a good, easy read... But do not think you will be moved to do much more than you are already doing.  I have read other books and I won't mention them here but maybe on my blog that rocked my world in how I see the homeless.  I would also encourage you to read Isaiah 58 for a week or two and then Matthew 25:31-46 and hope we all would realize that we are called to get involved and that really is all Mike is saying here, get involved..

Also on Mike's behalf I really do believe this experience has changed him forever and that is the glimpse we get, how God get his attention... Good stuff,

Bill  

Disclaimer: I was given this book by WaterBrook Multnomah to read and to review..