Goff - Love Does

PRAISE FOR LOVE DOES

If this book does not make your heart beat faster, book the next flight to Mayo Clinic!

Bill Hybels, Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church
Chairman, Willow Creek Association

Bob Goff is a one-man tsunami of grace, a hurricane of love. He doesnt just talk about change, he really is change, as Love Does chronicles in such a vivid way. Yet, Love Does doesnt leave you feeling like you want to celebrate its author, it awakens a sense deep within that you, too, have an outrageous role to play in Gods unfolding story or rescue and repair.

Louie Giglio, Passion Conferences/Passion City Church

An interesting and compelling story (with Young Life roots) that ends with a practical challenge and punch: love does and God can use you to do it!

Denny Rydberg, President, Young Life

Every once in a while someone like Bob Goff shows up to remind us that some things matter a lot more than others. Love Does has a kind of north star effect that will push you to refocus your life and energy on what is most significant. It doesnt just invite you to respond with your God-given potential, it invites you to become a part of what God can do beyond your potential.

Reggie Joiner, Founder and CEO of Orange

We liked the book a lot. Mostly, the balloons on the cover. The rest was pretty good too. Lots of stories about how God helps us.

Aedan, Asher and Skye Peterson ages 13, 12 and 9

This may look like a book. Its not. It is an invitation to enter into the greatest adventure you have ever knownyour life as it was meant to be lived. Hang on!

Michael Hyatt, Author, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World
MichaelHyatt.com

We really liked the book. Especially, the part about Tom Sawyer Island. I think its really cool how Bob takes things from real life and compares it to what God and Jesus do.

Livi, Jonah and Ben Goodgame ages 11, 8 and 4

I love this book!! Read it only if you dare to be inspired to have more fun, adventures, and the courage to live life to your fullest potential!! Love does delivers on so many levelspart memoir, part call to action, all spiritual journey, and so well-written you wont be able to put it down.

Darla K. Anderson, Senior Producer, Pixar Animation Studios
(and Bob Goff co-conspirator of many adventures and antics)

Love Doesa book title and personal manifesto wrapped into one. Bob Goff just does love, and on that path he sets others free to find themselves, to take courage, to make their mark, to pursue an adventure. Like all good books, Love Does feels like a conversation with the authora real talk about things that matter. Goffs book is a deep dive into a world with rough edges, where sentimentality and pithy remarks have no hold. The passages in Love Does stay close long after you turn the last page.

David Batstone, President, Not For Sale

I would steal Bobs life if I could. His tenacious love of the unlovable, his courage to kick collective wisdom to the curb, and his infectious belief in whats possible make him the man I want to be. Love Does is a beautiful and dangerous gift to all dreamers, misfits, and whimsy world-changers.

Mike Foster, People of the Second Chance

Bobs ability to love people brings contagious hope and inspiration wherever he goes. The power of love showcased in this book will surely touch the hearts and souls of many people. Read Love Does and find a friend in one the worlds best hidden secrets, a person who shows how love can create connection and make a differenceeven across oceans.

George Tsereteli, Deputy Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia, (former Russian Republic)

If all people loved the way Bob Goff loves all people, the world would change overnight. In this book, he reminds us of the truest virtue the kingdom calls us to practice: Love Does. Its active. The Jesus we serve is surprising and subversive. Bob knows this because he himself is both paradoxically wise as a wizard and as joy-filled as a toddler.

Jason Russell, Co-founder of Invisible Children

There are some nasty rumors out there about treasure. Mostly thats its buried and needs discovering. Or has to be mined. Or can only be located with a map and a big X. Not so, says the life of Bob Goff. Living from the center of your heart doesnt have to be complicated or elusive. Love just wakes up in the morning and gets busy loving. The treasure is sitting right there next to the pancakes. About 5 pages in, I knew my life and I were gonna have words.

Nicole Nordeman, Mother and Musician

LOVE
DOES

DISCOVER A SECRETLY INCREDIBLE LIFE
IN AN ORDINARY WORLD

BOB GOFF

2012 by Bob Goff

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

The quotation in Bigger and Better is taken from C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (orig. 1949; New York: HarperOne, 2001), 26.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012933533

ISBN-13: 978-1-4002-0375-8

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QGF 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to
Sweet Maria, Lindsey, Richard, and Adam and the
posse of friends who have changed the way I see Jesus

CONTENTS

by Donald Miller

by Donald Miller

B ob Goff has had a greater impact on my life than any person Ive known. And while youll read stories in this book about adventures both big and small, it isnt bears or witchdoctors or dynamite that got through to me, though I confess Bobs adventures are intoxicating. The reason Bob has impacted my life is because he loves me.

Bob Goff loves people with a force that is natural, and by natural I mean like nature, like a waterfall or wind or waves on the ocean. He loves effortlessly, as though love packs annually in snow on a mountain, melting and rushing through him in an infinite loop. Theres no explanation for a man who can love this well save God. I think Bob Goff knows God, and I think Gods love flows through him.

Im not alone in these sentiments. There are many around the world who have experienced the same love. What do you do with a man who will get on a plane and fly around the world to attend the wedding of a new acquaintance? What do you do with a man who offices at Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland because angry lawyers are less likely to yell at him there, and for that matter, what do you do with a lawyer whose business card simply reads Helper? What do you do with a man who worked for two years to free a child from a prison in Uganda, all because I met the kid and asked him to? How do you explain the fact that he lumbers, pajama-clad, into his garden every morning to find a rose for his sleeping wife? And then theres the old lady who ran into his jeep, sending his body flying into the street to whom he also sent flowers. Therere the DC diplomats, the new acquaintances to whom he daily sent pizza for a week, the Ugandan judiciary that he took to Disneyland, and the refugee camp outside Gulu where he dug wells and delivered pounds and pounds of clothes.