When I started ministry with university students my first boss told me his priority was that students not just believe in Jesus’ grace, but enjoy and live in light of it. At the time I remember thinking, “Seriously, that’s it? What about biblical theology, exegesis, ministry skills?”
While these other things are important, 20 years of ministry to students and my own experience of walking with Jesus has convinced me my boss was right. Depending on and enjoying Jesus’ grace is how you become a Christian, mature as a Christian and continue to serve Jesus fruitfully over a lifetime.
A Personal Journey
Church planter Dai Hankey learned this acutely when he found himself burnt out and in a crumpled heap. In Hopeward: Gospel Grace for Weary Souls, Hankey shares the story of how Jesus “graciously put [him] on a hopeward pathway to recovery, restoration and renewal” (12).
Hopeward: Gospel Grace For Weary Souls
Dai Hankey
Jesus says, “Come to me, all who and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28)
Author Dai Hankey is a church planter in Cardiff and founder of Red Community, a Christian charity that fights human trafficking in Wales. Speaking from a personal experience of burnout, he comes alongside weary Christians to explore what it looks like in practice to really lean on Jesus and enjoy his rest.
We get to know Hankey as we read. His honesty, warmth and self-deprecating humour, his love for Jesus and desire to serve Jesus, his fragility and vulnerability. I’d prefer to refer to him as Dai, not Hankey, because I feel like I got to know him.
But, while Hankey’s personal hopeward journey structures the book, Hopeward is less a personal testimony and more a series of biblical encouragements about different (but overlapping) ways that Jesus graciously sustains his people over time.
Jesus And His Grace
Hopeward continually reminds us that Jesus’ grace is transformative. We come to Jesus as we are, but meeting Jesus changes us as his grace penetrates our heart. Baby step by baby step, with Jesus always there to catch us when we fall, his grace enables us to get back on our feet and gives us energy to serve him.
Early chapters exhort people to “Come to Jesus (He welcomes the weary)” and “Receive from Jesus (He gives grace to the needy)”. Later chapters encourage Christians to “Walk with Jesus (He is with us and for us)” and “Run to Jesus (Run the race with endurance).” Each chapter focuses on one Bible passage that sheds light on the person, work and words of Jesus, with a particular emphasis on the cross. Around each key passage, Hankey layers in different images and biblical references to paint a lavish, multifaceted picture of Jesus’ love and grace. For example, when writing about Hebrews 4:14–16 and the work of Jesus our great high priest Hankey writes:
The beauty of our great high priest is that far from being repulsed by us, his heart burns for us and his desire is for us to draw close to him … See your Great High Priest holding out a hand of mercy, not a fist of retribution. (27, 30)
A Pastor’s Encouragement
Hankey writes as someone who understands weariness and wants to encourage weary Christians toward Jesus’ offer of grace to those who come to him. The chapters are short, easy to read and include a written prayer. The key Bible passage in each chapter is written out not just referenced. Reflection questions end each chapter to encourage us internalise what we have just read. All of which are extremely helpful when you are weary.
Hankey encourages Christians to come to Jesus through the normal means of prayer, God’s word and Christian community, reminding us to depend on the Spirit and not ourselves for the power to change. He imitates my first boss: Hankey doesn’t just want us to understand grace doctrinally but enjoy the grace of Jesus.
His illustrations are embodied, evocative and tactile. Consider his description of entering the “gospel rehab” clinic—far different to my experience of hospital casualty departments.
You’ve come here at the Master’s personal invitation. As you step inside, a wave of temperate air hits you with relief. The door softly closes behind you and the din of the outside world is hushed to silence. Inside, it’s bright but not glaring; warm but not stuffy. More than that, it … feels … hopeful. (23)
Hankey’s straight talking also has refreshing cut-through. I know the incarnation is central to Jesus’ ability to be our great high priest but Hankey reminded me how wonderful it is.
Jesus totally gets us. There is not a single sin, struggle, trial or temptation that you have faced, are facing, or will ever face that could cause Jesus to shrug his shoulders and say, I’m sorry, I can’t help you because I have absolutely no idea what that must be like. No, he has faced down every temptation imaginable, and experienced all kinds of suffering—yet come through it all without faltering or failing. (26)
Limitations
Hopeward presents Hankey’s journey as a step-by-step progression from burnout to restoration. For many people their journey towards Jesus won’t feel or be this linear. That’s one of the challenges of using his personal testimony to structure the book. Hankey does recognise that this journey needs to be repeated again and again and I suspect his use of ‘hopeward’ over ‘forward’ is partially an attempt to get around linearity. Even so, Hopeward does have a forward momentum with key words, in order, being come, receive, abide, feast, grow, walk and run to (or with) Jesus.
Hopeward presents Hankey’s journey as a step-by-step progression from burnout to restoration. For many people their journey towards Jesus won’t feel or be this linear.
Because Hopeward is short book, some topics are missing or underdone. Having rightly encouraged people to rely on other Christians as gifts of Jesus’ grace, Hankey also acknowledges the pain that can be caused by Christians. What he says on this important and complex topic is gentle, humble and honest, but it is brief and won’t satisfy those genuinely wrestling. Having also rightly encouraged people to rely on God’s Spirit as a gift of Jesus’ grace, Hankey says almost nothing about the broader spiritual battle in which we are engaged, aged and wearied by. In this fight only the grace and power of Jesus can save us.
My Journey
Initially, I panned to read Hopeward in two days. But Hopeward is not that kind of a book. I ended up using it in my daily devotions over several weeks. Hopeward was a lovely reminder of Jesus’ delight in me, forgiveness of me, intercession for me, and ability to change and work through me.
I’m not currently feeling hopeless or weary, (though I’ve been there), but I was wrestling with second thoughts about a recent decision. And I was regretting mocking, arrogant words that I couldn’t unsay. Hankey’s reflections on the apostle Peter’s failure and recommissioning by Jesus were restorative: “It’s God grace, not our failure, that has the last word” (92).
Hopeward is written primarily for weary Christians, but its warm, applied, biblical encouragement to discover Jesus and his grace afresh is something we all need to hear again and again—whether you are on fire for the Lord, just hanging in there, or meeting Jesus for the very first time.
