Experience Jesus, Really will teach you to slow down and meet God daily

In a world of constant noise, John Eldredge’s Experience Jesus, Really invites believers into a deeper, more personal encounter with God. Blending mysticism, spiritual reflection and everyday faith, it’s a book that challenges sceptics to slow down and truly abide

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” was the rhetorical question asked by the Apostle Peter to the Lord Jesus, in response to His own question to Peter and the disciples about whether they wanted to join the crowds of people who abandoned the call to follow Him. “You have the words of eternal life” was the reason Peter gave for sticking around. It’s the same reason I’ve kept walking this narrow path. But there is a difference between staying because there is nowhere else to go versus staying because you enjoy being here. It is this gap that John Eldredge seeks to bridge, a transition that can be made only through experiencing Jesus really, deeply and daily in his latest book Experience Jesus, Really (Thomas Nelson Publishers).

That’s exactly what this book is: an encounter. The book’s subtitle is “Finding refuge, strength, and wonder through everyday encounters with God,” all of which I experienced as I read. This is probably intentional, given that the author is keen to promote his vision of “ordinary mysticism”.

Ordinary mysticism, Eldredge argues, is the essence of the Christian life. Whereas the prevailing assumption about mystics is that they are special people who are mostly found in monasteries, Eldredge stresses that every believer ought to be one by default. This is because the essence of the gospel - that Christ came into the world to save us from our sin and unite us to God - is a mystery. Everything about the Christian life - from justification and salvation to sanctification and glorification, is a mystery. God is a mystery! To live with that awareness is to be deeply attuned to the holy, finding peace and joy in his presence.

In other words, ordinary mysticism is obeying Jesus’ call to come to him as a child, setting aside our need…