When God Interrupts: Finding New Life Through Unwanted Change - Paperback

by M. Craig Barnes (Author)

Our lives are constantly changing. It's hard to keep up, to keep our balance. It's hard to keep trusting in God. And it's especially difficult when the changes we're faced with are unwanted: the death of a loved one, a child leaving home, an illness, a frustrated dream.Craig Barnes knows the dark side of change. As a pastor, he has counseled many Christians through tough times of transition. And he has been challenged by unwanted changes--interruptions--in his own life. At times it seems as though God has moved far, far away. But Barnes has discovered that just the opposite is true: during times of change and seeming abandonment, God is right at our side offering to lead us in a new direction, offering us new life. He writes, "A young widow can outlive her grief and decide her life may never be the same but is far from over. A lost job can become the beginning of a new vocation."Here is the book for all who have known disappointment, bereavement or the shattering of faith, a book all the more valuable because it promises hope without denying despair. In When God Interrupts a sensitive, insightful pastor shows us how we can be found by God in the middle of unwanted change.

Back Jacket

When God Interrupts is for men and women who are not living the life they had planned. It is for those who have faced significant loss, loss that has forced them to make a frightening choice. Will they clutch at something else for their salvation? Or can they leave their hands open long enough to receive the life Jesus was dying to give them? Spouses die or depart. Friendships wither. Health fades. Children grow up and leave home. We move to new jobs and new towns. The dreams and securities of the past are shattered, hopes for the future disappointed. Nothing stays the way it was or turns out exactly as we had expected. Life, it seems, is necessarily dotted with loss, marked by abandonment. But all this should come as no surprise to Christians, those who are called to lose their lives in order to find them. So if we try to follow Jesus, we can count on a great deal of abandonment. The good - but hard - news of the gospel is that abandonment can be embraced as the opportunity to receive new life.

Author Biography

M. Craig Barnes (PhD, University of Chicago) is Meneilly Professor of Leadership and Ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and senior pastor at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a former senior pastor of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. His books include Searching for Home: Spirituality for Restless Souls, An Extravagant Mercy: Reflections on Ordinary Things, Sacred Thirst: Finding God in the Desert of Our Longings and Hustling God: Why We Work So Hard for What God Wants to Give . Barnes is also the author of numerous published articles and is a speaker at seminary and church events.