And understanding how God has so faithfully stood by us—even when we don’t thank him, think of him, or even remember him—is a key part of the process of falling in love with God.
BOB HOSTETLER
This book—Falling in Love with God—is meant to help with the transition from head knowledge to heart love. Using the Old Testament book of Hosea (and modern love song lyrics—nice touch), author Bob Hostetler writes of learning how to grow a deeper relationship with God.
Does he succeed? It depends on where you are already and where you want to go. But either way, we all have room to grow, and this book can help guide you further along the continuum.
While I wasn’t as impressed with this book as I was another Hostetler book, Quit Going to Church (loved that), if you’re wanting to study Hosea, this is the one for you. (And if you want a modern Hosea novel, read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers).
So how do you fall in love with God? You begin unwrapping how much he loves you. It’s a lifelong project. And as you go, you’ll find yourself loving him more and more. (A great book on that is The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows by James Bryan Smith.)
Quotes from How to Fall in Love with God:
Because, you see, one key to falling in love with God is experiencing the scandal of God’s love for you.
God didn’t ask Hosea to proclaim his love, to prophecy his love, to preach about his love, until Hosea had tasted on a human scale the extent of God’s condescension.
We talk about choosing Christ. We sing, “I have decided to follow Jesus,” and that’s certainly how it looks from our perspective. But from the Bible’s perspective—and from Hosea’s perspective—it looks more like this:
“You were dead in your transgressions and sins . . . gratifying the cravings of [your] sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. . . .
But because of his great love for [you], God, who is rich in mercy, made [you] alive with Christ even when [you] were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:1,3,4-5 NIV
I have discovered that the only thing that will heal my waywardness, my unruly heart, my tendency to wander from God and get into all sorts of trouble, disappointment, and dysfunction is letting God love me.
It’s his love that heals me.
That’s why I pray. That’s why I read the Bible every day. Because I have just one job every day, and that is to put myself in God’s hands and let his love heal me and make me more and more like the tree he talks about in Hosea 14. That’s my experience.
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View the trailer for Bob and Falling in Love with God.
My thanks to ACU Press/Leafwood Publishers
for the review copy of this book
