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🎈🎈Everybody, Always by Bob Goff🎈🎈
Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks

My Thoughts

From the author, the goal of this book is to reaffirm the power of extravagant love and excessive grace in your life and in the world. The book is filled with inspiring stories and anecdotes from the author’s life, I highly recommend it. He also wrote Love Does, another book I encourage you to read.

My Favorite Quotes

• If we make everything about us it will never be about Jesus.
• We might be known for our opinions but we will be remembered for our love.
• What is simple often isn’t easy, what is easy often doesn’t last.
• Loving God and loving our neighbors are one inseparable mandate.
• When joy is a habit, love is a reflex.
• God doesn’t like you more when you succeed or less when you fail, He delights in your attempts.
• People don’t follow vision, they follow availability.
• People will figure out what we really believe by what we actually do.
• People grow where they are loved.
• God often uses what we’re good at to guide us into what we do next.
• When you’ve got a guide you can trust, you don’t have to worry about the path you are on.
• Don’t tell people all your opinions, give them your love.

Key Questions

• Am I really so insecure that I surround myself only with people who agree with me?
• What part are you going to play in building the kind of kingdom Jesus said will outlast us all?
• What if we found out God’s big plan for our lives is that we wouldn’t spend so much of our time trying to figure out a big plan for our lives?
• What delights you?
• What fires your imagination?
• What fills you with a deep sense of meaning and purpose?
• what draws you closer to God?
• What is going to last in your life and in the lives of others?
• What will make a good and lasting impact a decade from now?
• What if God isn’t saying anything to us because He has already said it?
• How is your life working for the people around you?
• What if we weren’t afraid anymore?
• What is it that you don’t think you can do?
• What do you think is to big, scary or risky?
• Where do you want to go?
• Who are you becoming and where can we go to help you get closer to that?

Chapter 1: Creepy People

We don’t need to be who we used to be. God sees who we are becoming and we’re becoming love.
How do we prove who we are?
Jesus said we would identify ourselves by how we love people.
Not by what we say we believe or by the good things we hope to do some day.
Love is someone we become.
Loving people who are easy to love makes us think we are good at it.
People who are becoming love see the beauty in others even when their off putting behavior makes for a pretty weird mask.
Jesus wants us to love everybody, always. Start with the people who creep us out.
Understand the difference between good judgement and living in judgement.
We have to tackle a good amount of fear to love people who are difficult.
We make a loving people a lot more complicated than Jesus did.
Am I really so insecure that I surround myself only with people who agree with me?
Jesus wants us to live without fear.
We will become in our lives what we do with our love.
We get to know God more by loving people who are difficult to get along with.
Love the people we don’t understand, ones we disagree with, the ones who are flat wrong about more than a couple things.
Stop trying to be right and instead try to be like Jesus. We can be correct and not right.
Trade kindness for rightness.
We might be known for our opinions but we will be remembered for our love.

Jesus told us how to engage people we’ve been avoiding:

1. Love God
2. Love your neighbors
3. Love your enemies

Find a way to love difficult people more.

Chapter 2: Meeting Carol

God doesn’t just give us promises, He gives us each other.
Nobody should have to feel alone in this world.
Big faith doesn’t need big words.
Be not afraid. God said this to Joshua, Abram, and Jesus said it to the fishermen.
People who are becoming love stop letting fear call the shots.
We should engage and embrace our problems.

Chapter 3: Love Everybody, Always

Love one another.
What is simple often isn’t easy, what is easy often doesn’t last.
Loving God and loving our neighbors are one inseparable mandate.
We can’t love God if we don’t love the people He surrounds us with.
Stop waiting for a plan and just go love everybody.
You can’t love people you don’t know.
When joy is a habit, love is a reflex.

Chapter 4: The Yellow Truck

Don’t tell people what they want, tell them who they are.
Oftentimes what looks like faith is merely compliance.
We will become in our lives whoever the people we love the most say we are.
Let God’s Spirit do the talking when it comes to telling people what they want.
Forced compliance only lasts a short time, faith lasts a lifetime.

Chapter 5: The Limo Driver

Don’t build a castle when you can build a kingdom.
How we treat the trolls in our life will let us know how far along we are in our faith.
What part are you going to play in building the kind of kingdom Jesus said will outlast us all?
Loving people means caring for them without an agenda.
People grow where they are loved and accepted.

Chapter 6: Skydiving

God was with us so we’d be with each other.
Story of wanting to be with his son while skydiving.
There is a big difference between knowing what someone is doing and being with them while they do it.
Try to obey Jesus 30 seconds at a time.
It is easy to agree with what Jesus said, what’s hard is actually doing what Jesus did.
Agreeing is cheap, obeying is costly.
Be with people.
Don’t just be in proximity, be present.

Chapter 7: A Day at the Museum

It doesn’t matter what our faith looks like, it matters what it is.
Wax museum.
Posers.
Ananias and Saphira posing.
When we act like someone we are not, it’s because we are not happy with who we are.
It’s bad if we miss out on who God uniquely made us to be so that we can be who someone else thinks we should be.
God has never looked in your mirror and wished He saw someone else.

Chapter 8: The Pizza Place

What we’ve spent our time collecting might not be worth it.
Chucky Cheese.
Story of worthless game tickets, saved up 1,000 tickets for years to get a pencil.
People who are becoming love stop collecting tickets.
People who are ticket counters are insecure about how much God loves us.
God wants our hearts and our help.
Giving away God’s love is it’s own reward.
Jesus doesn’t need credit and we shouldn’t either.
People talk about what they love.
Practice saying “it’s not about me.”

Chapter 9: From the Lighthouse Window

Everyone hits a couple of wrong notes, keep playing your song.
Loving people the way Jesus did is great theology.
Life is not a recital.
The next time someone near you messes up, hold them aside in private and just give them a hug.

Chapter 10: Three Green Lights

We don’t need as much confirmation as we think we do.
Jesus never asked anyone to play it safe. We were born to be brave.
Playing it safe is not faith.
What if we found out God’s big plan for our lives is that we wouldn’t spend so much of our time trying to figure out a big plan for our lives?
Perhaps He just wants us to love Him and love each other.
Our ability to change is often blocked by our plans.

Don’t ignore the green lights you already have.
What delights you?
What fires your imagination?
What fills you with a deep sense of meaning and purpose?
what draws you closer to God?
What is going to last in your life and in the lives of others?
Do those things! Those are your green lights.
Figure out what your next move is going to be, then make it.
No one is remembered for what they only planned to do.
All opportunities come with expiration dates.
Sometimes when we ask God for an answer He sends us a friend.
God isn’t surprised when we want more confirmation, He just hopes we won’t get stuck waiting for it.
Perhaps we don’t get all the answers and confirmations we ask for because God loves seeing us grow.
Know the difference between a prudent pause and a persistent paralysis.
You don’t need to take all the steps, just the next one.
God gives us all the green lights He wants us to have.

Chapter 11: Last One, Best One

Jesus often uses our blind spots to reveal Himself to us.
Planning to love people is different from just loving people.
Make love your plan.
We will see what we spend the most time looking for.
Part of seeing more involves looking for what we really want in our lives.
Jesus is looking for honest answers about what is really going on in our lives.
God doesn’t like you more when you succeed or less when you fail, He delights in your attempts.

Chapter 12: Three Minutes at a Time

Friendships can last a lifetime, but we make them three minutes at a time.
Story of meeting Adrian working as a TSA agent at San Diego airport and getting to know him.
Love and unbridled anticipation are contagious.
God’s first question to Adam after the fall was “where are you?”
There is a benefit to knowing who we are: it helps people around us.
When we are with a person who knows who they are, it allows us to take a breath and a second look at ourselves too.
Jesus wants us to show people who he is by what we do.
If you’ve only heard of Jesus and don’t know who He is, ask Him who He is, He will tell you.

Chapter 13: Karl’s Dive

We’re not held back by what we don’t have but by what we don’t use.
Where we turn or heads is where we will land with our lives.
We can be so busy trying to get the approval of others that we forget who Jesus said we are.
When you go from what is popular instead of what is eternal, you are usually looking for approval of others instead of God’s approval.
What will make a good and lasting impact a decade from now?

Chapter 14: Land the Plane

God doesn’t give us all the details, because He trusts us.
God isn’t always leading us to the safest route forward, but to the one where we will grow the most.
God speaks most clearly in the stillness desperation brings.
What if God isn’t saying anything to us because He has already said it?

Chapter 15: A Welcome from Walter

What we do with our love will become the conversations we have with God.
Bob loves balloons! 🎈 When in an uncertain situation he brings balloons: job interviews, bar exam, gym, hospital, etc.
Jesus will care most about how we treated people on the fringes of our lives. The poor, hungry, thirsty, hurting, etc.
If we have done it unto the least of these we’ve done it unto Jesus.
Walter thinks every needy person he meets is Jesus.
If we want to do something nice for God, do it for His kids.
People who want a reason to delay often wait for plans.
Don’t make it more complicated than it is, just start.
The author will buy 20 burgers and drive around town asking people if they are hungry.

Chapter 16: What Grace Costs

Grace doesn’t cost as much as I thought.
People don’t follow vision, they follow availability.
Author left his cell number in the back of one million copies of his last book and gets calls all the time.
Be available and accessible to people.
I don’t want what’s fair anymore, I want to be like Jesus.
Illustration of man calling Bob from prison several times and he ended up buying him an ankle bracelet.
We don’t need to put ankle bracelets on all the things we do for God like we’re trying to keep track of them.
If we make everything about us it will never be about Jesus.
We don’t have to be the hero or the victim, sometimes we are just tree #4. Example of a role in a school drama.
Jesus said to go find people who are hurting, lonely and isolated.
I came to play, not to watch.

Chapter 17: My Bucket

How is your life working for the people around you?
If our lives aren’t working for the people around us, our lives aren’t working for us.
Bob Goff’s impatience was driving the people around him nuts.
We will become in our lives what we put in our bucket.
If we fill our buckets with love we will become love.
There is a big difference between being efficient and being present.
How we engage with people around us (ban teller, grocery store clerk, etc) that lets everybody know where we really are with Jesus.
People will figure out what we really believe by what we actually do.
We all encounter difficulties, it is what we do next that defines us.
People grow where they are loved.
We need to stop driving or get off the stage if we cannot be the same person speaking on stage as we are driving in the slow moving line.
Jesus never had a problem with people who knew their shortcomings; but he didn’t tolerate people who faked it.
Bob Goff walks around carrying a bucket reminding himself to fill it with patience.
Stop laying sod where Jesus is planting seed.

Chapter 18: Croc Drop

We all go to our church.
The gospel is not a list of rules to obey; it is a person to follow.
We go to church to meet Jesus, not to critique each other.
God picked us to spread His love to the world.

Chapter 19: Be. Not. Afraid.

When you have all the power, you don’t need all the words.
God often uses what we’re good at to guide us into what we do next.
Story of walking into the courthouse in Uganda and meeting the Chief Justice, he walked in without an appointment and met the #2 most powerful person in the country.
Bob gave the Chief Justice the key to his home and he eventually came to the US and visited him. He took him to his “office” at Disneyland.
When we are looking for a plan, God often sends us a friend.
Many of us think of our big mistakes as disqualifying us; God sees them as preparing us.
Every Wednesday from 10 am – 2 pm Bob works at his “office” on Tom Sawyer island in Disneyland.
Where we meet shapes the discussions we have.
Location drives content.
What if we weren’t afraid anymore?

Chapter 20: Witch Doctors and Witness Stands

Courage comes in all sizes.
Great love often involves tremendous risk.
What is it that you don’t think you can do?
What do you think is to big, scary or risky?
God is always using the same three words with us “Be not afraid.”
If we want to please God we need to love our enemies.
Our problem is we are trying to be a better version of us instead of a more accurate reflection of Jesus.
There is a big difference between liking Jesus and being like Jesus.
We will never be like Jesus unless we love our enemies.

Chapter 21: Randy’s Skill

God restores what He creates.
Instead of making it about ourselves, we should focus on how powerful God is.

Chapter 22: Kabi

What we punish, God forgives.
It’s easy to talk about loving your enemies until you have one.
If I want big things to happen in my life I need to take bigger steps and risk more than I have before.
God will turn us into love if we are willing to leave behind who we used to be.

Chapter 23: Where Do You Want to Go?

Big love takes us to high places.
Bob Goff takes every one of his children on an adventure for their 10th birthday, anywhere they want to go.
The question really means. Who are you becoming? Where can we go to help you get closer to that?
Oldest Daughter chose London for High Tea.
Richard chose climbing half dome.
Adam chose to ride across the desert on dirt bikes.
Charlie chose Mount Kilimanjaro.
When you’ve got a guide you can trust, you don’t have to worry about the path you are on.
It’s hard to walk with Jesus and run ahead of him at the same time.
We can confuse activity with purpose.
You can either run fast or get to the top of the mountain, not both.
It is easy to confuse business with progress and accomplishments with pleasing Jesus.
People who are becoming love celebrate how far people around them have come.
They are constantly asking people “where do you want to go?” Then they help the people around them get there.
Talk to them about who they are becoming and the bright hope that is their future.

Chapter 24: Graduation Day

Love always multiplies itself.
People who are becoming love do difficult things.
If you want to become love, what will it change for you?
Draw a circle around yourself and go love the people in that circle. Fill it with people who you disagree with, who are hard to get along with, ones you’ve been avoiding.
Loving your enemies means actually helping them.
He started a school teaching which doctors how to read and write. The only text books are in the Bible and love does. He is learning to love them.
The people who create bus out our obstacles to having faith, they are opportunities to understand it.
We don’t have any business telling people what to change in their lives unless we are willing to change things in our lives.
You can no longer continue to be the person you’ve been.
What are you going to let go of?
Who is it you don’t get?
Who don’t you understand?
Who’s been mean, or rude, or flat wrong, or creeps you out?
Don’t tell people all your opinions, give them your love.
Two things will happen when you love your enemies:

1. It will be messy
2. You will grow

My Action Steps After Reading

• E-mailed the author thanking him for this book and Love Does.
• Increasing awareness of the need to love people, especially “creepy people” and those who are mean, rude, flat wrong, or that I don’t understand.

Related Book Summaries

• Christian Book Summaries
• Love Does by Bob Goff
• Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
• Spiritual Leadership Book Summary
• Break Out Book Summary
• Scary Close by Donald Miller

This is the 98th book read in my 2018 reading list.
Hope you enjoyed this and got value from my notes.
Here is my complete list of book summaries.

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