The Interviews

This is a short extract from chapter 10 of 'Love Does' by Bob Goff, which I read over my time away at New Year's, continuing a tradition of reading a book that someone else has brought to the cottage (see, The Kingdom of God is Like a Yoghurt Plant). I read it in company one of the evenings, and everyone loved this chapter. It's a good book, and a very quick read, if ever you are able to get your hands on a copy.

The premise of the book is simple: it's a collection of different stories from Bob's own life about the way that following Jesus has made his ordinary life extraordinary. He writes of faith as living out love, which "involves being present and making a sacrifice" - and suggests that this is why Jesus is called Immanuel, 'God with us' - it is a love that does.

When the kids were growing up, we didn't have a television in the house connected to a cable or an antenna. If something bad happened in the world, I wanted the kids to hear about it from us as parents. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I rushed home before the kids left for school and gathered them around our dining room table and told them what had happened. Like everyone else, we struggled for words to describe to our kids why such a thing would occur.

After talking for a while, I asked the kids this: “If you had five minutes in front of a group of world leaders, what would you ask them to help make sense of life, faith, hope, and the events that are unfolding around them?” and had each of them write down what they would ask on a piece of paper.

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