Tony Kriz

Have you ever wondered where God is? Do you want a more courageous faith? Are you somebody who desires authentic questions and raw answers?

"God, are you there?" is a near universal cry of the human heart.

We have all longed for God to be tangible. Some might sway to worship music, others go on missions, others fast from food. The universal quest is to feel the divine . . . and yet the divine seems aloof, even shy. In this narrative-driven book, Tony Kriz leads the reader on a journey of "orchestrated epiphanies" along the eternal quest to tangibly encounter God, including the unpredictable moments that give us hope, and even more so, the long gaps between those moments that challenge our faith.
Written in an authentic, conversational style,Aloof is easily accessible to those who don't know much about the Bible, yet the message is still theologically informed and culturally relevant. This book will help you process how God acts uniquely towards us, depending upon each stage of life. The chapters include contemporary real-life stories that normalize the experience of an often hidden God, while also aiding the reader to acknowledge the very real moments (rare though they may be) when God has shown up in a tangible way.
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What are we to do with a companion who hides?
I have been told all throughout my life about God. I have been told that God is loving and powerful and always with us. The stories were most often triumphant. People cooed, often swaying on stage in front of guitars and a Plexiglas encircled drum set. They cooed about this ever-close God, this ever-speaking God, this ever-tangible God. The words were beautiful and inspiring and made me want to sway along too, yet when the service was over . . .
. . . Back out on the street, I would look for the close, the speaking, the tangible companion we had just been singing about, but he was nowhere to be seen. I would reach out with my emotions to feel, well, anything. My emotions would not return to me, finding nothing to bounce off of, like a lost sonar ping.
* * *
"God, are you there?"
This question is as natural to the human experience as, Why is the sky blue? or Why am I here? or Will I ever find true love?
The equation seems logical enough. It is so simple that even a child could conceive its parts. The equation embodies a mystery that has been haunting me most all of my life.
It goes something like this:
1. If God is all-powerful, just as the pages of the Bible teaches me,
2. If God loves me and truly wants to know me, so much so that he would introduce himself with names like Father and Emmanuel (God with Us), and
3. If God is an effective and apt communicator, so much so that he would invent language, make us relational beings and adopt the name "The Word,"
Then why does he hide from me most of the time?… (plus d'informations)

Unhappy circumstances set Tony Kriz thinking about the way God hides. His four-year-old nephew, Ransom, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of liver cancer. Kriz prayed that God would show up and hold Ransom's hand--through treatment and through death. This set his mind thinking on his own journey and the way he has sensed God's hiddenness throughout his life. More accurately, Kriz recounts the way God 'shows up' unexpectedly just beyond his grasp.

This is a memoir of doubt and faith. Kriz recounts how he sensed God's presence when he was a child and said the sinner's prayer to receive Christ. He also tells of how a well-meaning Sunday School teacher caused him doubt that experience. He describes how his growing doubts during his teen years swallowed his child-like-faith whole. When he left for college he had every intention of leaving Jesus behind but God pursued him. So in college his faith deepened through prayer meetings, Bible study, mission trips and joining a fraternity (because God told him). These were the 'dojo years' and he felt the nearness of the Master. But when Kriz went out into the world his faith again became untethered. He threw himself into Christian missions and an activist faith. Kriz reveals that part of his activism was an attempt to get God to notice him. He ends up broken, needy and abandoned. There is one encounter where Jesus came to him in a real way but mostly Kriz felt abandoned and alone. Thankfully this isn't the whole of Kriz's story. He comes back to faith and begins to sense this Hidden One in rest, in waiting, in the shyness of the Spirit, on learning to encounter God on His terms, in community and in all things.

I gave as bare-bones of a sketch as I could. Kriz's story is worth reading for yourself. Kriz has given us a gift of opening up his journey and reflections to us (these reflections were intended first for his nephew Ransom). With searching honesty he traces his tenuous faith from childhood to his forties. With searching honesty he reflects on answers to prayer along the way and experiences of Divine intervention, but he never lets these become easy-proofs of God's Presence.

Kriz's story is much more impressive than mine--both in its highs and lows. Yet I relate to some of the unrequited desire to meet God and to experience him intimately. His uneasy faith and seasons of doubt reminded me of difficult spells in my own walk. Like Kriz, I cannot point to anything in my history that 'proves God' but like him I have come though to a place of strong(er) hope.

This is the second book from Kriz that I read. Neighbors and Wise Men was another memoir that recounted parts of his story and how Kriz was nurtured back to faith through unlikely people. This book is more personal. It is sadder in some respects, but no less hopeful. I highly recommend this book. Five Stars.

Notice of material connection: I received this book from BookLook Bloggers in exchange for my honest review.
… (plus d'informations)

This book was exactly what I needed to read. God's remarkable that way, of course. I love Tony's view of allowing God to speak through any and everyone he comes into contact with. So many times, we try to put God in a box and refuse to entertain the idea that he might move in ways we can't understand, ways that are outside of our little box. "God works in mysterious ways" is a well-known saying but how many people really believe that, really live out an acceptance of the mystery of God?

I'll bet that the Pharisees thought they had it sown up. They had a box, too, and Jesus did not fit in it. Modern-day Christians are often threatened by other religions or non-believers because of this very same thing. I wonder if Jesus came back today, if he wouldn't have to break us out of our religious mold, our assumptions that have become FACT in our minds over the centuries, and show us what God really meant. Probably.

Rather than sharing the gospel like cake that I have and that you don't, we should share the gospel like one shares a sunset, Kriz argues. I could not agree more. God is the painter and we can only marvel at his glory!… (plus d'informations)