Today I started reading John Eldredge’s new book, Beautiful Outlaw. The tag line is “Experiencing the playful, disruptive, extravagant personality of Jesus”

You may remember that the books written by John and Stasi Eldredge have changed my life. Quite literally. One ended a romantic relationship. One opened my eyes to the deep beauty of a biblical marriage. One inspired me to write my own book. All have encouraged my soul and deepened my walk with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Since I’ve been so busy, I didn’t realize John published a new book! Actually….it’s not quite new anymore….just realized it was published Oct. 2011! Yikes!

Anyways, I am SO excited to read this book! I’m only a chapter in, but I’m loving it so far. This first chapter is talking about the playfulness of God. Totally a characteristic we don’t think about often…or at all, really. I won’t share all the cool things I read, you can check out the book yourself! But, I wanted to share one of my stories of God’s playfulness with me.

It happened when I was freaking out about meeting Bret for the first time. I was driving up 95 and trying to listen to the radio and calm down. I’m one of those “HAVE to be listening to music when driving” people….actually, all the time. It makes me uncomfortable when there isn’t any music! So, here I am, trying to sing along….and I just can’t calm down. I turn off the radio and start talking to God….I’m talking the arms shaking wildly at the sky, out loud type. The conversation went like this:
Me – “God! Why are you always putting me into situations where I freak out like this?”
God – “Because it’s easy!”

Here is where I laughed and calmed down for about 2 minutes.

Fast forward a few more minutes and I was talking to my dear friend Kristi.
Me – “Kristi, it’s crazy, tell me it’s crazy!”
Kris – “Calm down, you’re just meeting a guy”
Me – “Ah, thank you, much better”
Kris – “But God’s ways are not our ways…..”

::insert another freak out::

I look back and see how God was just having fun with me. Not in the “kid with a magnifying glass over ants” way….but in the “joking around with friends” way.

I’m so excited to read a book that talks about this side of God! Because I wholeheartedly believe it’s part of who he is and it’s a side that really isn’t discussed enough.