Oct 1 2009 1:24PM
Very appealing and good tool for growing faith in the miracles of God.
This lovely book of daily devotions is both aesthetically appealing and intelligently put together with very helpful back-of-the-book indexes, Organized by monthly titles, each of the 366 devotions follows under its topic-related month, and each begins with a verse inspired by experiences of our many varied and caring missionaries in service around the world.
As I read each page, I felt my heart melt and my faith deepen. God does work surprising miracles--most of them done in silence, many of them unknown, and all of them from a small seed of hope. While these missionaries worked ardently to change the world day by day with the treasure of saving one person at a time, they experienced adversity, answered prayers, triumph, and the wisdom of lessons learned. Through their committed lives, we are assured that when we seek God in patience, He will guide and sustain us toward our divine appointment.
Some cases in point:
Aisha's husband forced her to be a muslim. When her son became extremely sick, she turned to her Christian roots and prayed fervently for her son's healing. The fever soon subsided, and Aisha committed her life to Jesus. She left her abusive husband but continued to cook and clean for him while he was gone. Her kindness eventually caused him to look into Christianity and he was completely transformed.
In Asia, 'K' ran a Bible study for three girls with one of them, Emma, debating her every point. One evening, when 'K' really did not look forward to another debate, Emma came running in with a tract she had been given weeks before. She was excited as she said, "I believe this is true!" 'K's' tears began to well up as Emma expressed a desire to follow Jesus.
For several months, a Romanian pastor traveled to and from a small village known for its alcoholism and immorality. After Vioral, a man with the worst reputation in town, became saved, he, too, began to witness for Christ. It took time but the day came when the entire village was transformed by belief in the Gospel. All four bars shut down, wife-beating ceased, and the police left town. There is no longer any crime in Valea Mica.
When Omar's sister received a Bible, he slapped her face with it and then burned it. In a dream that night, God spoke to him with powerful words, so powerful that Omar woke up and ran frantically to the place where he had burned the Bible. It was on top of ashes, "unburned,
clean, and new."
These aforementioned incidents and others like them gave reason to pause in reflection as I read their concluding prayers. I felt the stories so true and moving that this book has now become part of my quiet time routine and also serves as a reminder to pray for the nations.
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Sep 4 2009 3:51PM
Fantastic and inspiring
This is a devotional-style book, with one entry per day. (Obviously I didn't follow that, because I am reviewing it for Thomas Nelson.)
I think this would definitely work very well if you read it that way, because reading it all at once means that I got a little tired by the end and so certain passages didn't affect me the way they normally would have. But the short passages would be a fantastic beginning to any day.
Each entry is written by a missionary and it deals with their day-to-day life. There are also Bible verses and a short prayer. Some stories are sad and some are inspiring. (One story tells of a man who burned his sister's Bible. In a dream that night, though, he saw shining hands take the Bible out of the fire and turn it from ashes back into the book. The next morning, he found the Bible completely intact, sitting on top of the ashes.)
Each month deals with a common theme. November's, for example, is "Be Encouraged." My personal favorite entry is from November (specifically November 21):
"Through it all, God was my constant companion. Even when it felt like He wasn't there, I knew He was. I knew that when my pain was so great that I couldn't even form thoughts, the Holy Spirit was crying out on my behalf. Sometimes just `hanging on' is standing. Crying out to God is standing. Trusting God to be in charge is standing. I did not do these things myself. God made me stand by helping me to hang on, to cry out, and to trust.
"There are some struggles in which we can feel God stiffening our spine, making us stand. There are many struggles that require spiritual hindsight in order to see how God's hand was at work. Even though we feel we are weak, if we are hanging on to God, we are still standing."
If you like devotional-style books about God, you'll like this one. The stories, as I said, are tragic or funny or inspiring, but they'll all make you feel something.
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