Excerpt: Foreword by Eugene Cho

Now Featured in the Patheos Book Club
The Grand Paradox
The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith
by Ken Wytsma

Foreword by Eugene Cho

We all know that there are books out there that give us 99 steps for this, 40 days for that, seven ways for farther here, or three steps for deeper there.

This kind of nicely packaged formula sells because well, there's a market for such nicely, packaged formulas. We yearn for our lives and our world to be neatly seasoned for our appetites and our desires for order and dare I say, control. Yes, we even want our God to fit nicely in our compartments, categories, and boxes for us to fully understand and perhaps, even manipulate.

Ken Wytsma doesn't provide easy steps, pat answers, or a systematic approach. If that's what you're looking for, keep looking. It's not convenient or palatable. It's not a book that gives you clear directions — like a step-by-step spiritual GPS.

What kind of book is this? It's a gut check. An honest look in the mirror. It's one of those books that says, "Whatever. Let's just try to put everything on the table … knowing that the table will still be messy when it's done."