Learning My Name

Book Details

Discerning Reader Editorial Review

Reviewed 06/12/2010 by Chad Vandervalk.

Recommended. Not your typical exposition of the prodigal son parable, but an authentic and honest look at God's relation to the self.

For me there are few stories which epitomise the relationship between God and I than the parable of the prodigal son. It fits my life in so many ways, and consistently provides new insights into my relationship with the Father. Pete Gall, in his book Learning my Name, opens up about his own journey toward the Father using this parable as a guide to his reflections.

When Zondervan sent me this book I was a bit skeptical. Do we need another book on the Prodigal Son? Turns out Gall does not really discuss the parable much. Rather he shows the different ways that his own life has overlapped with the story.

What I’m about to tell you is good news, but it might not seem like it at first: Who and what we are is defined by relationship, not by function.

He agrees that this may not be different from what we have been told our whole lives; however, the real meaning of this good news has been removed as the words have been dissected and discarded.

The church has a tendency to interact with our version of God instead of interacting with the God who loves to make himself known.

When we truly come to interact with the God who loves us with absolute abandon, we will come to understand our true identity as someone who is already loved and accepted.

What Gall is slowly learning is that God really likes him, and wants to be with him. Learning that he is not the "dumbass" he keeps calling himself, but he is the "sweetheart" God calls him.

This is not a book designed as a Bible study, or even a theological treatise, and there are things which readers may not agree with. But this is an account of how one man who struggles with accepting himself is slowly learning to see that God loves him anyway.

He redefines success as accepting, not achieving:

Success in life is not measured by what we achieve, but by what we come to admit. It is not measured by how far we journey, how many zombies, goblins, or droids we slay, or by our return as champions. It is not measured by how much good I do for any of the people I get paid to care about. Success in life is measured by what we come to admit.

We succeed when we admit that we need a ride from an eagle.

We succeed when we admit that we are sinners in the hands of a God who has every right to obliterate us but has instead invited us to journey – to tour – this playground of a planet and this universe of spirit and beauty and joy. We succeed when we admit – as a child admits when she closes her eyes and soaks in her mother’s song – that there is nothing for us to do to earn God's love by to receive it.

The point is not the triumph – the point is the deliverance. The point is not the hero – the point is the deliverer.

Gall is starting to see his identity not as someone who does something, but as someone who is loved by God, and who does not need to be the hero to be accepted.