no plan B

I can't say that I've ever read a book, such as Radical, that has challenged my faith as much as it has. After reading the last page, I just had a "wow" moment. A typical saying from reading a good book might be, "I can't put it down, it's so good!" While Radical was unbelievably good, as much as I wanted to, I wanted to put it down, because it was challenging me that much, but I didn't because I wanted to finish it and see how God was using this book to change my faith in different ways. To me, it was a big smack in the face and reality check.

Throughout the whole book, Platt is basically telling us why living radically is so important, while providing stories about people who are truly living it out. All of the stories are awesome and just convicting. One in particular, involves a small underground church that is Asia. Platt was a short term missionary in a part of Asia and encountered this underground community. The people there had really no one to educate them in the Word, so Platt did it. These people would leave their farms, which were everything to them to go underground to study the word. They abandoned everything to study the Bible everyday for two weeks, for hours upon hours everyday. After the two weeks, they had studied the whole entire Bible. When I finished reading about this underground church, I just stopped and thought: Have I ever been that hungry to study God's word? And the answer was no. These people gave up everything to just learn about His word and they had to do it secretly. I don't have to go through what they do to study God's word and I really take that for granted.

At the end of the book, Platt gives us the Radical Experiment, which if we choose to do it, will happen over the period of a year. He recommends five things to do.

1. Pray for the entire world.

2. Read through the entire Word.

3. Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose.

4. Spend your time in another context.

5. Commit your life to a multiplying community.

I've already started.

I could probably write forever about this book, but there is so much inside the cover that I could not even begin to talk about it all. Go get it! You'll want to put it down...