Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Soul

by Chad Bird; Mark Galli

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2017

Journeys that begin in brokenness rarely follow a straight road to healing. There are twists and turns—and setbacks—on the path of repentance.

Night Driving tells the story of a pastor and seminary professor whose moral failures destroyed his marriage and career, left his life in ruins, and sent him spiraling into a decade-long struggle against God. Forced to fight the demons of his past in the cab of the semi-truck he drove at night through the Texas oil fields, Chad Bird slowly began to limp toward grace and healing.

Drawing on his expertise as an Old Testament scholar, Bird weaves together his own story, the biblical story, and the stories of fellow prodigals as he peels back the layers of denial, anger, addiction, and grief to help readers come face-to-face both with their own identities and with the God who alone can heal them.

Praise for Night Driving

John Ortberg
— author of The Life You’ve Always Wanted
“It is not clear to me why God meets us uniquely in pain. It is only clear that he does. In Night DrivingChad Bird gives us an unsparing look at the desperate and unpretty human need for God through the lens of his own journey. We are shepherds of darkness and stewards of scars. If you’re having problems finding God in your life, you may find him here.”

Elyse Fitzpatrick
— author of Because He Loves Me
“All too infrequently, into our sweet and tidy churchiness, comes a book of such amazing transparency, hope, precision, beauty, and glorious messiness that it shakes us from our lethargic self-justification. . . . Chad’s book is just such a gem.”

Rod Rosenbladt
— cohost of the White Horse Inn radio show
“Most ‘tell-all’ books have a ‘self-atonement-by-confession’ scent, but not this one. Any and all ‘self’—particularly his own—the author shows is no more than idolatry. But the triune God specializes in giving life to crushed, despised, broken, dead people—me, you. And always through his incarnate, crucified Son. All for you, for me, for all—including the author.”

Mark Galli
— from the foreword
“In this little book, Chad has a singular purpose. He wants us to get one thing straight. . . . He wants there to be no mistaking that, even in the darkest of times, we are not our own but belong to another, to one who has our best interests at heart and will never let us go.”

Product Details

• Title : Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Soul
• Authors:
  • Bird, Chad
  • Galli, Mark
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2017
• ISBN: 9781467448260

About the Authors

Chad Bird is a speaker, scholar, writer, and truck driver who weds biblical truth to life experience to help broken people like himself. He has contributed articles to Modern Reformation, The Federalist, and other publications. He also cohosts the podcast 40 Minutes in the Old Testament and blogs at chadbird.com.