Summary: My Beautiful Idol by Peter Gall (Zondervan, 2008) is a provocative memoir that will touch your heart in unexpected ways.  Peter has crafted a work that can only be described as a beautiful mess.  It is an uncompromising work of spiritual transformation and transcendence.

Review:I purchased this book on a recommendation from a friend who said it was the best book he’s read since Blue Like Jazz.  That’s a huge compliment but it also created huge shoes to fill.  Comparing a book to what some considered the quintessential post-modern memoir has the potential to set it up for failure before it begins.

And my friend was right.

My Beautiful Idol shares Peter’s spiritual journey from Chicago to Denver over a three year period.  Peter shares his journey with uncompromising honesty as he searches for what it means to be a “tremendous man of God.”  The journey takes him from wealth to poverty as he almost blindly navigates his way through his decision to follow God’s call on his life.

What is truly interesting about this book is Peter’s willingness to share the intimate details.  He fails to cover-up the details that many would consider un-Christian, things like sex and arrogance, narcissism and failure.  Peter lives his life in all of its glory and tragedy and shares it with us.  Where Donald Miller tends to write from a generous naivete, Peter writes from an almost obnoxious awareness of his brokenness.  And this is what makes the book work.  Much of the journey is Peter’s willingness to confront how much he’s a partner in on his own failure.

Peter shares some amazing theological ideas that must be read to be appreciated.  The title refers to the idols we cast in order to validate us.  But the problem with idols is that they will always choose to kill us first.  His metaphor of the two crabs is stunningly aware of the world most Christians live in.  And this is the only caution with the book.  Peter writes with a stark criticism of the Christian life, mostly because his journey is about honesty.  This book will piss a few people off because it will touch a few veins in the process.

Much of the transformation process in Peter’s life was the willingness to lay down our idols, and come to terms with resting comfortably in the relationship of seeing life through God’s eyes.  Peter seems to be saying that we can never created something that will be better than what God has already given us, so don’t try.

Note: You can get an audio version of Peter’s book for free here, but why not give a little to support this great writer.