Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Soul

I loved this book and cannot recommend it enough.
With class and wisdom Chad Bird transparently shares how success, well-meaning work for God, and chasing ‘the dream’ brought him face to face with pride, adultery, and the fragility of having it all together. What I loved the most is that Chad doesn’t use himself as a standard for the reader to measure themselves by. He doesn’t advertise false humility, nor is Chad marketing a way to turn one’s life around.

Night Driving: Notes From A Prodigal Soul speaks to the human heart as very few books can do. Chad is an excellent wordsmith, and profoundly expresses through the scars of his own sin, the complete love and grace Christ has for His people, regardless of their resume.

This book is a window into a self-narrative that is also our own. Chad recalls the long seasons of despair, accounts of sorrow and grappling with forgiveness, simultaneously learning that God had never left him and still loved him relentlessly. It is in that Juxtaposition that God does his best work on our unbelief.

The last paragraph in the book says it best:
“Look at your scars and cherish them. They are icons of divine love. They are transfigured by the grace of the God who will always call us by one name: Beloved.”

This spiritual autobiography is not an apologetic for "bad boy" theologians. It's not a treatise on antinomianism. It's not a vain attempt at self-glory or justification. This book honestly portrays the wreckage of sin in the life of the author, who chased after far too many idols in his day, and rightly warns the reader against the same. Consistently Christocentric, the good news of Christ is clearly portrayed in masterful writing. At 148 pages, this book is a very easy read. I recommend this book without reservations.

In a day when feel-good authors like Joyce Meyers and Joel Osteen dominate the bookshelves at Wal-Mart, it is refreshing to see a book that looks at life squarely through the cross and understands the Christian life entirely in Christ. Bird weaves his story into the broader narrative of scripture creating much more than another spiritual autobiography. The images are fresh and dynamic and sometimes raw, yet timeless. IIt a quick read, yet any reader would benefit from re-reading the text to catch thoughts and images missed the first time around. I am glad that he was able to share his oftentimes painful experiences as an illustration of the healing possible in the Gospel.

Chad Bird walks with a limp. And he's ok with that.

In a powerful and deeply moving memoir of his motivated rise to a respectable life, replete with a loving wife and kids, the respect and esteem of hundreds within his chosen career, Chad exposes his failures and his precipitous fall from grace ... and then into grace in this excellent book, Night Driving: Notes From a Prodigal Soul

Chad writes with candor and vulnerability, laying bare his failings in all of their raw and ugly selfishness. They sent him fishtailing across the lanes of life and left him upside down in a ditch of his own making.

It would be out on the rutted roads of west Texas oilfields while driving a big rig in the graveyard hours of the night that he came face to face with the ravages of sin and the grace of God. "God specializes in broken people ... No matter how badly we have wrecked our lives, our Father is in the thick of that disaster to begin the work of making us whole again." he writes (15). It took a painful path for Bird to realize this.

The journey from brokenness to wholeness through the Gospel of Jesus Christ is often a slow and arduous one with peaks and valleys; successes and sins rearing their ugly heads yet again. Bird speaks candidly of this undulating trail he trod and does so in language and prose that is both gripping and beautiful. The expanse of his writing talent doesn't obscure the reality of the tale he weaves; broken stories are ugly even when beautifully told.

But what is clearly most beautiful of all in this work is the grace of God that never departs the narrative. Bird isn't telling his story to gain sympathy, the scandalous isn't employed for gratuity. One doesn't have to read far into the book to discover that this story is less about Bird and more about a prodigious God. He writes, "The message woven through these chapters is this: Every step of the way we are accompanied by the God who, in Jesus Christ, will never un-love us, un-adopt us, un-redeem us, no matter what we've done..." (page 16)

It took awhile for Bird to grasp that himself, but he doesn't drag the reader through the muck of his making without reminding us of what God was doing in him and through his circumstances. God "made use" of the messes Bird made. "He doesn't lend us a hand as we fight free from the clutches of idolatry." he writes. "He doesn't show us the way to refine our hearts so we might love him alone. Jesus accomplishes for us everything the Father desires, despite our selfish attempts to thwart his work every step of the way." (79).

"Thwarting God" is a wrestling match that Bird unpacks throughout the book, but most poignantly in his final chapter, the heaviest and lightest of the book. He retells the story from Genesis when Jacob wrestles with God on the banks of the Jabbok river. "In a Bible full of bizarre stories with bizarre endings, this one, perhaps more than any other narrative in Scripture reveals what beats deep within the heart of God for us, his children" (127-28) he writes. That story is a mirror of Chad's. His match with the Almighty also takes place in the dark, but "during the small hours of the night, the Lord looms large, filling those nocturnal hours with a violent love. Time ceases to be measured by seconds and minutes. Instead, it is counted by blows and falls and bruises in the night. And the fight will go on until the dawn of defeat or victory.” (131).

But the thing is, Chad’s defeat is his victory. You, me, Chad ... we don't beat God. He lets us win, or, God chooses to lose. This victory doesn't call for gloating. The win is found in a recognition that God and God alone is God. We are not.

The "joy of Jesus is the victory of those who have no chance to win," Chad writes. His decade-long struggle with God, flailing wildly to win on his own proved fruitless, as it will for me and you.

And that's the point. Sinners like Chad and sinners like me win by losing. Jesus loses so we can win.

Chad Bird walks with a limp, but that’s the price he had to pay to be conformed into the image of Christ. It’s a gait he’s grateful to have.

This is a story of how one man's pride lead to his downfall. It's every person's story, too, in that we sin but God in his love brings us back to Him. You can follow Chad Bird as he talks with God and how God forgives. I could see myself in this; I learned about true forgiveness of others as God forgives me.

Chad speaks from the heart and from his own experience and witnesses a wonderful Grace story. I bought two to share.

Perhaps the greatest thing about Chad's story is that he is not the central character, God is. Chad's storytelling is raw and beautiful. He calls a thing what it is and exemplifies for all what it means to be shaped by the Gospel of Jesus' death and resurrection. This is a book of hope that whispers and shouts that God comes searching for all of us, no matter how lost we are.

The book was very well written and the author was very open and transparent. Night Driving is a warning and also a reminder of how much the Father loves and pursues His wayward children. I read most of it, and gave it to my own Prodigal husband. Unfortunately, those of us who love our prodigals and are heartbroken over their decisions are usually the ones who will read this book. I definitely recommend it and I think it would be good for a men’s group too. If they dare to hear the truth.

Bird pulls no punches in this honest and inspiring portrayal of a life's struggle with sin and faith. What I like best is how he relates his experience to the hidden things God is doing which brings one to a place of trust in Christ while exposing our search for personal glory. Well written and engaging, it will steer you back to Christ, where ever you've strayed (inside or out of church).

This is the best spiritually based book I've ever read. The entire book reflected my own personal experiences and struggles with life and God. Great job Chad.