Michael Dittman - Abiding Instead of Striving

Michael Dittman builds telescopes for NASA by day and has spent the last nine years processing a decade of chronic pain, a shattered family and his daughter's four overdoses into a story of hard-won redemption. In this conversation he talks candidly about the gap between knowing the right theological answers and actually experiencing the delight of an intimate relationship with Jesus, tracing how thirty years of striving, shame and unexplained physical suffering eventually gave way to a single, transformative encounter at a men's retreat: hearing Jesus say "I know, me too."

From infertility and inflammatory arthritis to his daughter's descent into addiction and two painful church experiences, Michael doesn't shy away from the mess. He explains how a small, untrained house church taught him more about genuine transformation than forty years in churches with gifted preachers ever did, and shares the framework he now teaches through Grace Forge, the ministry he and his wife Karen have built around the idea that God has already forged the grace we need. His new book, In the Wake of Jesus: Grace That Changes You and the World, unpacks it all.

Michael G. Dittman
GraceForge