#Rethink: Abraham's (lack of) Faith, Beth Moore's Memoir, and Religious Rebels
Join me here at the end of April as we question Abraham's faith, ponder Beth Moore's beautiful memoir, and explore what's new with my book, "Religious Rebels."
#Rethink - April 2023
Welcome to the final day of April and this issue of Rethink where we will question Abraham’s faith (or lack of it), ponder Beth Moore’s beautiful memoir, All My Knotted Up Life, and explore the latest news with my own book, Religious Rebels coming out June 15th.
How did Abraham—a man who often struggled to have faith—end up being called a man of faith? And what does that tell us about our own struggles?
I’m leading a little evening Bible study right now with my church, and we are going through Lina Abujamra’s study called Through the Desert: A Study on God’s Faithfulness. During the first week of study as we looked at the life of Abraham, something stuck out to me that I’d never noticed before: how God responded to Abraham’s lack of faith.
The timeline of Abraham’s early life went something like this:
God shows up and asks Abraham to follow Him into the unknown.
Even though Abraham doesn’t seem to have a previous relationship with the LORD and the culture around him is caught up in idol worship, Abraham goes with God.
Abraham packs up his wife, his nephew, and his servants, animals, and possessions and begins to travel as a follower of the LORD without a specific landing point. What incredible faith!
A famine descends and Abraham immediately picks up his people and his things and heads to Egypt where the steady irrigation of the Nile River keeps things green. He also tells his beautiful wife, Sarah, to tell everyone she is his sister rather than his wife so that if Pharaoh decides to grab her for the royal harem, he won’t kill Abraham first. Um, what happened to his faith?
And here in this place of what we would call failure, Scripture just records God faithfully stepping in, sending sickness on Pharaoh and his household, protecting Sarah, and setting Abraham back on his feet to follow the LORD (Genesis 12). True to the rest of the Old Testament stories, there is no condemnation, no lectures, disappointment, or judgement. God just patiently works with broken people to teach them, guide them, and build them into the people He knows they can be.
Reading with Western eyes, we typically approach the Bible looking for laws, principles, and rules to follow. We ask questions to discover what this story teaches me about me. But the Middle Eastern people who wrote the Bible and those who originally heard the Scriptures looked for stories and narratives that told them about the LORD as they asked questions to try and understand why God would do what He did.
Maybe Abraham’s story isn’t about him or his faith that he eventually had after a 35-40 year relationship with the LORD. Maybe it’s about the faithful God who called Abraham, walked beside him for a lifetime, and worked His will despite the brokenness and failure.
Maybe it’s okay that we fail, that our lives feel a bit mundane and ordinary, and that we struggle to know what is true, right, and good. Maybe God isn’t looking for spiritual people to serve Him, maybe He is looking for broken people to faithfully love through a lifetime of them learning to know Him and becoming more like Him.
“But for those who resist insisting on idyllic circumstances and faultless people, new beginnings can be had.” Beth Moore, All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir
I’ve never done a single Beth Moore Bible study in my life. I’ve never been to one of her conferences, listened to a talk she gave, or watched her on YouTube. I knew who she was because, well, Beth Moore, but if I’m honest she also kind of annoyed me because I thought her hair was too big and her makeup was too much. Shallow, I know.
More recently I started hearing some of the controversy between her and the SCB along with other old-guard, male, Evangelical leaders. I liked some of the things she was saying and the gutsy way she was calling out the same crap that I was seeing within the church. Then I read this article from Christianity Today detailing a story from her new memoir, and I was hooked. I needed to read it.
My husband was game for listening to All My Knotted Up Life with me on the way down and back from Florida over Spring Break. So while the kids watched their movies or listened to music in the back of our rental car, my husband and I began the story of Beth’s life in the front.
I don’t know what I expected, but it was not what we heard. We heard painful, brutal, gritty, real, devastating stories that were also filled with the grace and love of God. I didn’t expect my husband and I to be crying together through the hills of Alabama while our GPS took us on some roundabout country roads to avoid traffic on the freeway. If I wasn’t a Beth Moore fan before, I am now!
It’s like with Abraham. God takes us on these journeys and uses everything to make us into people that look more like Him. He is faithful, and loving, and patient even when this world is not. Beth’s story brought strange healing to some broken places in our own lives. It gave me courage to move ahead even if things don’t seem “Christian picture perfect.” It made me doubt Christian picture perfect even more than I already do.
Get the book. Or better yet, borrow an audio copy from your local library or download one on your favorite device, because the stories are even better when Beth tells them in her own Arkansas and Texas accents. I’ll probably be listening again myself sometime soon, and according to what I’ve heard from friends, I’m not the only one who reads/listens to this book more than once.
Religious Rebels will be released on June 15th, 2023!
This is truly still surreal to me. In January (three months ago) I didn’t have a finished book, let alone a published book. Now I have a book that I will be collecting from the local printer on May 25th.
The official release date is June 15th and that’s when you will be able to find it online on Amazon. Because I’m publishing with an independent publisher, you won’t be able to pre-order on Amazon but I’m working to get a pre-order option up on my website. I can autograph those ones before I send them out. That’s fun!
In the next few weeks I’ll be organizing a launch team. These are people who want to read my book early and then tell everyone they know to buy it. Haha! They will receive a free (early release) digital copy of the book and we will create a Facebook group where we can talk, share, and process together. I’m excited about this piece. You don’t have to be anyone special to be part of the team, just be willing to share Religious Rebels on social media and in person.
There will also be a launch party and book signings the Thurs-Sat of June 15-17. More info will be coming, but if you are local to GR I’d love to see you! Thanks for all your support, friends. This is such a crazy adventure and I’m just so happy that you finally get this book in your hands. Here’s a back cover/spine/front cover spread for you to enjoy.
Thanks for taking a moment to #Rethink some of our religious traditions and beliefs. I know that it can be scary to deconstruct and reconstruct our faith, but finding the Real Jesus is absolutely worth it. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or comments.
You can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, my website, and on my podcast Looking for the Real God. I’d love to connect with you on any of these places!
How fun that you were listening to Beth’s book this month too! Glad we weren’t the only ones driving and crying 😂