Instaread - Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World by Bob Goff

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Bob Goffs

Love Does

Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

by

Instaread

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This is a companion to the original book.

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Table of Contents

Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World by Bob Goff is a memoir of the lawyers journey through faith as a Christian.

As a young child, Goff injured his eye when he was playing with his father's rifle and the gun went off. Goff's dad rushed him to the hospital, which is how Goff imagines God responding to human failures.

Goff befriended a corner store owner. Goff often bought candy at the store and the owner would sometimes allow him to take the candy even when he did not have enough money. This helped Goff realize that sometimes people can make their own rules.

When Goff was in elementary school, he joined a Little League baseball team. The team made it to the playoffs, but lost. Goff, however, hit a home run. His coach sent him a card that told him he was a real baseball player, calling out his potential the way Jesus did for his disciples.

In seventh grade, Goff picked a fight with a notorious bully and got in trouble for it until he explained he did it to protect the helpless kids the bully was constantly picking on. Later in life, Goff founded a mediation service for Christians and took two clients who hated each other. Goff decided to resolve their dispute by renting a boxing ring for them to fight in, but neither showed up. Goff believes that Christians should pick good fights and always choose God's side in any fight.

Goff first learned about Jesus from his friend, Doug, in high school. Goff owned a BB gun, and Doug owned a pellet gun. They sometimes practiced shooting in the woods. Doug once shot Goff, causing a flesh wound that they had to treat. Afterward, Doug told Goff about Jesus.

In high school, Goff met a Christian youth leader named Randy who worked for the organization Young Life. When Goff told Randy that he would be dropping out of high school to live in Yosemite to work part-time and climb cliffs, Randy volunteered to make the trip with him. Randy supported Goff, even after Goff applied to every available business without getting a job and realized that he would not be able to live out his dream. Goff decided to return home and finish high school.

After high school, Goff wanted to attend Humboldt State University to become a forest ranger based on unrealistic ideas about forest rangers' lives. When he lost these illusions, he considered going to the university where his girlfriend studied, but she broke up with him in a letter. Goff drove with Doug to the university to try to talk her out of it, but he was unsuccessful.

In college, Goff took time off to hitchhike between two cities in California. He ended up riding with someone who claimed to be Satan. Goff left the car and found another, safer person to ride with. In Goff's view, Satan is unimportant because he was unimportant to Jesus.

Goff graduated from college and decided to attend law school, but he got low scores on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and his applications were rejected. He was eventually admitted to his dream law school because he sat outside the dean's office for ten days.

Goff's first real job was as a busboy, and then as a waiter, at a restaurant called Lehr's Greenhouse. On the first day that he served as a waiter, he was excited, but was fired the same day for passing gas while serving his first table's meals. He gleaned from this that failure is a learning experience not to be feared.

In law school, Goff was part of Young Life and met a Young Life leader, Maria, whom he immediately decided he would marry. While courting Maria, he made her a giant Valentine card, left sandwiches under the windshield wipers of her car, and helped her find a place to stay with other women in Young Life. He arranged a grand proposal on a yacht, a trip that was canceled due to weather, and finally proposed in an abandoned rooftop restaurant.

The wedding had to be planned on a tight budget because Goff was a new lawyer just out of school. They got a free venue from Goff's boss and catering at a discount. The wedding cake fell on the ground in the parking lot, and Goff helped the baker reassemble it with frosting, even though bits of asphalt and gravel were later found in the cake.

The first year of their marriage, Maria complained that Goff did not hear her. Testing found that his hearing was perfect. Goff realized he sometimes demonstrated selective hearing with Maria and may also do so in his faith.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Goff asked his three children what they would like to be able to ask of all of the world leaders. Then they sent letters asking to meet with every world leader. Some responded, agreeing to the meeting, and Goff helped his children travel the world meeting with leaders and having friendly conversations about their hopes for the future.

When each of Goff's children turned ten, he took them on an adventure to do anything they wanted. His oldest asked for a trip to London, the next wanted to climb Yosemite's Half Dome arte in a snowstorm, and his youngest wanted to ride his dirt bike through the desert. Each trip started out unplanned, and the desert trip ended in an accident with no serious injuries.

Like Goff did himself as a child, his son, Richard, played a game called Trade Up or Bigger and Better, traveling door to door with a group of friends trading something small for something a little bigger or better. Once, Richard started with a dime and finished the night with a truck that he gave to a nearby church. This game is an analogy for how life changes after accepting Jesus's offer of eternal life.

As a professor teaching business law, Goff met a student named John who wanted to use his life for the greater good. Goff challenged him to travel to Uganda with him and, when they arrived, they established a school for refugee children. The school started out small, but the classrooms grew and John stayed to run it. Eventually, he expanded the school to include boarding students. The students consistently passed the country's standardized tests, and the school's soccer team played for the Ugandan national title. In 2011, they purchased land to expand the school.

When Goff established Restore International, he met with a former FBI agent friend, Charlie, who volunteered to lead the organization's investigations into human rights abuses. Goff and Charlie traveled to Uganda with Attorney General John Ashcroft to meet the president of Uganda and the country's judges. Charlie, Goff, and some volunteer judges began visiting villages where individuals were held in jails but not tried in court, finishing the legal process where no judges were available to hear cases and freeing many children from prolonged imprisonment.

To prank Doug, Goff and his wife went to the hotel where Doug planned to have his tenth wedding anniversary celebration with his wife. They checked in as Doug and his wife and proceeded to have an enormous dinner charged to the room. Not long after, Goff received a phone call from a Ugandan ambassador. Goff thought it was a prank by Doug in revenge. However, they arranged a meeting. Not only was the call real, but the ambassador asked Goff to become a consul to the Republic of Uganda. Goff agreed even though he wondered if he was the right person for the job.