The Useful Sinner: An Everyman's Guide to Understanding Grace

The review of this rediscovered gem comes from none other than Mbird confidante Josh Sherman:

A friend put "The Useful Sinner" by David Hawkins in my hands last week, and the story of grace found within its modest 100 pages absolutely floored me. It's out of print, but if you can possibly locate a copy, it is well worth the trouble [ed: see below for more details]. The book tells the author's own powerful story - that of an accomplished corporate lawyer whose adulterous affair with his boss' wife becomes public and the miracle that occurs when he eventually comes clean with his wife - she forgives him.

While the consequences of Hawkins' transgression take a considerable toll on his marriage, children and career, the experience allows him to encounter God in a new and special way. He is converted. Here is an excerpt from the opening chapter:

Driving home from our hunt I prepared the words I would use to confess. [My wife] Louisa was in our bedroom sitting by the fireplace. I told her about the relationship and said that I was no longer involved. I then asked her what she wanted me to do.

After a brief interrogation, Louisa said she did not want me to leave. She asked me to kneel and pray with her. I do not remember the words she spoke. I only recall a clear sensation that a long fall into blackness had been arrested.

Louisa's faith has always been deep. It would, however, be a serious mistake to picture her as meek or mild. She is bold and outspoken, and while her reaction to my damning admission was probably not out of character, it was not what I expected. It was my first taste of grace. There were no excuses to be made, but I expressed my bewilderment at how I could have done such a deplorable thing. Louisa listened, found her Bible and search around until she found these verses which she read to me:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.

These two sentences expressed clearly the struggle I had lived for a year and a half. My response to these words was not spiritual, it was logical: this matches my experience and in my frame of reference it is therefore true. It was a starting point and a mere neutral truth which positioned me where I was as nothing more than another human who had lost the struggle with his conscience.

[Mockingbird has been fortunate enough to procure a number of copies - they are available here for a $15 suggested donation. We could not recommend this little volume more highly! More quotes coming soon...]