Painting with Ashes (Paperback)

Painting With Ashes is a wonderfully honest and deeply insightful story of radical conversion set in the frames of the tragic human narrative as this intersects with God’s prevenient grace in Jesus.  The result is a genuinely poignant, intelligent, and meaningful, witness. Captivating!

This was like reading a Henri Nouwen book – if Henri Nouwen was an alcoholic with a drug addiction and had a criminal record, that is. Despite a background of substance abuse and violence, Michael Beck has found the deep kind of healing Nouwen wrote about. In this comforting and inspiring book, Michael invites us to see how Jesus can make all things new, not by wiping away our past completely, but by reworking what we’ve been through and leading us in the direction of true human flourishing. This is beautiful work.

I was riveted to every page, deeply moved, exhilarated and spiritually revitalised. Michael Beck’s book is wonderful. 

"Your God will restore everything you lost; He'll have compassion on you; He'll come back and pick up the pieces from all the places where you were scattered" (Deut. 3:1-3). Michael Beck has written a personal testimony that will encourage the hurting and wounded to trust God who redeems and restores the broken.

Michael Beck’s new book will break your heart in the best possible way. His deeply personal stories of humanity’s brokenness will tempt you to close its pages and shut your eyes to the pain. But if you do, you will miss the most remarkable story of God’s redemptive power to turn the ashes of depravity and desperation into a stunning masterpiece of healing and hope.

I often mention Michael Beck when I refer to Jesus asking, "who do you say that I am?" Michael responded to this question with, "He was my cellmate!" That made an indelible mark on me. Michael found the One who could change his life around and he wants the world to know this One who can do the same for us. Generational trauma is real and he has experienced that and so much more. If you are afraid of reading a raw and real book about life, stay away from this one. But, if you want to experience the transformational power of Holy Spirit and the God who can heal any and every generational curse or trauma, then, by all means, dive right in. Thank you Michael for inspiring us.

Spirituality is reality. God takes us as we are and works to make us people who live in the new creation. Michael Beck's story is a powerful testimony to the reality of God's transforming grace, and it is a reminder that the same grace is offered to us as well.

Painting With Ashes is a must read for Christians at any level in their journey. Now in my 50^th year of ministry I was reminded of how God has used and will continue to use my own weaknesses to display divine power. Michael Beck uses powerful examples to demonstrate the fact that our greatest asset is in fact our greatest brokenness.

Painting With Ashes is more than just the powerfully raw, ruthlessly honest and relentlessly hopeful story of God’s work in Michael’s life.  It also offers deeply rooted, spiritually alive, and powerfully practical guidance for any faithful person who knows that God always has more for our lives that they have already experienced. By seeing what God is up to in Michael’s life, every reader will be challenged to discover more of what God is doing in their own. 

A can’t-put-down, gut-wrenching story that I couldn’t recommend more, Michael Beck’s Painting with Ashes shows how God brings beauty out of the most desperate places.  By weaving his story together with that of others who rose from difficult circumstances, Beck proves that each one of us is qualified to become a wounded healer. Beck also exposes what not just we, but also the church can be at our best. It is a necessary book for anyone looking to find their place in God’s story and teach others to do the same.

Michael Beck’s to-hell-and-back conversion story conveys what it means to be the church even better than some of the highest moments of Christian literature. Just as Jesus founded his church at the gates of hell, a church which isn’t hell-bent for heaven doesn’t deserve the title 'church.'

Painting With Ashes reads very much like a fiction thriller, except for one thing...it is no fiction. You hold in your hands a powerful description of God's redemption in the life of a man with first-hand experience of the healing power of Jesus Christ.

Michael Beck is a prolific writer and influential thought leader in innovative forms of ministry in North America. In this book we are introduced to the raw, unedited life story behind the movement maker. We see Beck’s journey shift from a hurt person hurting others to a healed person healing others—a shift that begins with a Bible slid through his jail cell door. Beck takes us on a profoundly difficult journey through the depths of pain and addiction to the heights of loving community found in AA and the local church. Ultimately, Beck reminds us that in Christ our greatest asset is our brokenness and a masterpiece can be painted with ashes. 

Painting with Ashes is a powerfully-written life story that’s both heart-rending and awe-inspiring, filled to overflowing with both brokenness and redemptive healing through God’s miraculous grace. Stories from scripture woven throughout come to life with illuminating, soul-convicting relevance. Especially, the compelling instructive picture of all God’s Church is intended to be provides an urgent call to leaders everywhere.

What a great read this is! With the pace of a novel and the dexterity of a surgeon, Michael Beck weaves his own story with those of many others to make clear God’s desire and ability to transform lives. Testimony and teaching combine to produce a positive, persuasive and so-much-needed message to each reader - that ultimately God wastes nothing and none of us are beyond the touch of divine, re-creative, purposeful love. Even those who don’t believe it! Read it. Then buy copies for those who come to mind, who also need to paint with ashes.

Confessional, raw, and honest are the best words to describe Michael Beck's Painting With Ashes as he describes how the curveballs, mess-ups, and missed opportunities in life do not have to be the final word in one's story. They can become the starting point for healing and wholeness. Beck's journey will break your heart, make you reflect on your own life and encounters, and fill you with the dangerous hope that all things are possible.

There is power in the practice of authentic testimony to a God who brings life out of death. This is Michael Beck’s story, and he places his journey within the larger narratives of scripture, spiritual wisdom and recovery.  God has never ceased to transform and heal us. Michael Beck bears witness to what all of this can mean. I needed to hear his story, again. I hope you will come to know it too!