Dave weaves together music, movies, and documentaries to illustrate all the ways we seek relief—and then, full and free, he connects our need to Christ’s gift.
Anyone who has raised teenage boys knows they don’t truly get full. Not really. They just pause their relentless eating—for maybe an hour—before resuming with renewed vigor. The only word that seems even remotely adequate to describe this adolescent phenomenon is voracious.
That same word aptly describes my approach to books. My appetite for reading never fades, nor is it ever fully satisfied. I just occasionally stop for an hour or so. This year, my goal has been to focus (almost) exclusively on reading or rereading the classics. So far, I’ve finished The Divine Comedy by Dante and Confessions by Augustine. My current stack includes the Quran and On the Orthodox Faith by John of Damascus.
So when Dave Zahl’s new book, The Big Relief, landed on my doorstep, what did I do? Postpone it until 2026? Of course not. From past experience, I know that when a book by Dave Zahl comes knocking, there’s only one rational response: set aside all other books (classics included), turn off my phone, lock the door, put the dog outside, grab five yellow highlighters, and settle in for a literary and Gospel feast.
I don’t know how he does it, but Zahl somehow infiltrates that hidden stretch of my soul I thought was concealed from all prying eyes. And he exposes it—in print, no less. My fear of rejection. My anxiety over status. My drive to be deserving. My addiction to the legal but lethal narcotic of control.
Zahl somehow infiltrates that hidden stretch of my soul I thought was concealed from all prying eyes.
And just when I think I’ve masked some small part of myself from him, Zahl leaks even that to the world: the fact that every morning I wake up to a gnawing sense of “productivity debt,” believing I must work, write, teach—and yes, read—more and more to justify my existence.
Chapter after chapter, my fears, my inadequacies, and—rising above them all—my craving for relief appear in print. The strange part? Seeing it all there is unexpectedly welcome. I caught myself saying, “Yes! This is what’s wrong with me, but I couldn’t quite put it into words.”
But Dave did. The good Dr. Zahl, stethoscope in hand, having listened to the uproar of angst raging inside my burdened soul, delivered this diagnosis: “Well, Chad, sounds to me like you’re a huge mess. What you need is obvious—an overflowing, refreshing draught of grace.”
Yes, grace. That is The Big Relief.
Zahl serves up this gracious relief in every chapter. But what is grace?
“Grace is one-way love,” he writes. “Grace is a gift with no strings attached. It is noncontingent, a compassionate alliance, unmerited favor, sacrificial love that seeks a person out at their most unlovable.”
And in Christian terms, this grace is “revealed in—and inextricably tied to—the person and work of Jesus Christ.”
In fact, “Grace is the Big Relief at the heart of Christianity.” The church is not, or at least should not and must not be, a “purveyor of spiritual and moral burdens.” As if we don’t already labor under enough of those! As Zahl writes in this memorable line, “If you conceive of institutional Christianity as a burning building, and you have time to rescue only one item before the edifice collapses, grace is what I would grab every time.” Ah, this man gets it.
He gets it—and he gives it—like there’s no limit to grace. Because there isn’t. When Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished,” he guaranteed that grace toward us would never be finished.
Across nine chapters, in his uniquely Zahlish way, Dave weaves together music, movies, and documentaries to illustrate all the ways we seek relief—and then, full and free, he connects our need to Christ’s gift.
Scan these chapter titles. I dare you to claim that even one of them doesn’t resonate with your own longing for relief:
Grace: The Relief from Deserving
Forgiveness: The Relief from Regret
Favor: The Relief from Rejection
Surrender: The Relief from Control
Atonement: The Relief from Guilt
Imputation: The Relief from Status Anxiety
Rest: The Relief from Keeping Up
Play: The Relief from Productivity
Rescue: The Relief from Captivity (and Death)
Here is the human condition laid bare. Here is a list of all the ways that sin has masterminded its grip on the core of our being and reduced us to spiritual enslavement. And here, in response, is the big relief—God’s gracious acceptance of us in Christ.
Grab a copy of The Big Relief for those in your life who are struggling inwardly or outwardly, who are exhausted from running on the treadmill of self-justification, or who have been burned by the do-gooding, favor-earning versions of pseudo-Christianity. Buy a copy for your family, friends, pastors, and teachers.
But mostly, get a copy for yourself.
For relief. For joy. For the unburdening of your soul.
In our worn-out world and worn-out lives, the message of a God who not only loves us but likes us, who can’t fathom being anything but gracious to us in Christ, is the biggest relief we could ever know.
The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World (Brazos Press, 2025) By David Zahl is now available for preorder.
