Do Hard Things by Alex & Brett Harris

It's just what it says. It challenges young people to get out of the mindset that work is bad, that the teenage years are for freeloading. I found it very inspiring! In my need to be balanced, I wished that it would have mentioned more that as Christians, we are called to do amazing things, yes, but that God gives the guidance as to what those are, and God gives the strength to do them well. But the truth is, many young people already have so much energy and enthusiasm and capabilities, it's just mis-directed. Alex & Brett challenge us to do things that are going to develop character and help others.

The Last Sin Eater by Francine Rivers

Such a good story... and also so inspiring. Amazing.

"Seems to me, it's pure selfishness that brings us within hearing distance of the truth, and then God has his way with us, don't he? He knows the ones already that'll come looking for him, and he even lights the way. It all begins and ends with him. So I reckon God's going to get done whatever he wants done."

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I found this very interesting... though I couldn't read too much of it at once because it was overwhelming to think of it being real.

Christy Miller #1-4 by Robin Jones Gunn

I started reading these again... they're so quick... and there's just something about the way it gives me a little bit of romance.

Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence

The book that has influenced my thinking most this year. What he has to say is great, and as I practice it, the true transformation is occurring... God is present, but I'm learning to be present too.

The Shack and Sacred Rhythms

William P. Young is a vivid, captivating storyteller. And this story tells of God's love and sovereignty. But I couldn't take another chapter of God speaking chapters and chapters... that doesn't even happen very often in the Bible. And I think Young could get his point across better with a STORY.


Ruth Haley Barton has experienced the stuff she's talked about; she's a reliable source. And I learned these concepts well when we discussed them during the Prayer Track at Chapter Camp last summer. Maybe that's why I'm ready to practice and quit reading about it...

Whispers by Robin Jones Gunn

Sometimes I just like to read something predictable, that lets me feel like a fast reader, and does something to restore a small sense of hope that men like Gordon do exist.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

Where Angels Fear to Tread by EM Forster

This book made more sense when I found out that Alexander Pope, British poet from the 18th century, wrote a line in Essay on Criticism that says "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head

This is my favorite book because it is romantic. I don't mean it is a cheap fairy tale, I mean it is full of idealism and heroics. And has a happy ending.

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, by C.S. Lewis

"Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, "Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words." A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?" (294)

Called to Care by Judith Shelley and Arlene Miller

Nursing is a ministry of compassionate care for the whole person, in response to God's grace toward a sinful world, which aims to foster optimum health (shalom) and bring comfort in suffering and death to anyone in need.

"Theologian Charles Sherlock suggests three general approaches [for finding our way in a culturally pluralistic world]:
1. We should put away the idea that any one culture embodies Christian faith (this is especially true for those of us who live in cultures that have been most influenced by Christianity.)
2. We should use crosscultural relationships to reflect on our own culture--both to identify our prejudices and to be enriched by others' experiences and ways of thinking.
3. We must recognize the effects of sin on all human cultures: the outworkings of human pride, self-centeredness, and the desire to be in control are present in every culture." (125)

"We actually proclaim the kingdom of God when we care for suffering people (Luke 4:18-21). Through Jesus Christ, God not only announced the ultimate end of suffering, he himself took human form to suffer for our sake--making that hope possible. Right now, we live in a now-and-not-yet kingdom. Jesus' suffering and death on the cross definitely won the victory over sin in our world. our hope for a new world order is certain. But the effects of sin sill ripple through our lives. The reality of the kingdom will not fully appear until the parousia--the second coming of Christ. In the meantime we endure suffering with patience and hope, trusting in God's mercy and compassion, but also reaching out in love to care for others who are suffering. Ultimately we look forward to a time when illness, tears and suffering will have been wiped away--when nurses won't be needed!" (217)

Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliott

This is why I like Elisabeth, and keep coming back to her. She just says it like it is- simple, but not easy. This is the "How to Know what God Wants" chapter.


A young woman came in great perplexity to a Scottish preacher, asking how she could resolve the question of her own desires when they seemed to be in such contradiction to the will of God. He took out a slip of paper, wrote two words on it, handed it to her with the request that she sit down for ten minutes, ponder the words, cross out one of them, and bring the slip back to him. She sat down and read: No Lord. Which to cross out? It did not take her long to see that if she was saying No she could not say Lord, and if she wanted to call him Lord, she could not say No.
No question comes up more often among Christian young people who face what seem to be limitless options than this one of how to discover what God wants them to do. What, exactly, is one's calling?

There are two very simple conditions to discovering the will of God. Paul states them clearly in his letter to the Romans, chapter 12. The first is in verse 1 (Jerusalem Bible): "... offering your living bodies as holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God." The place to start is by putting yourself utterly and unconditionally at God's disposal. You say Yes Lord. You turn over all the rights at the very beginning. Once that's settled you can go on to the second, in verse 2: "Do not mold yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, modelled by your new mind." I said that the conditions were simple. I did not say they were easy. Exchanging a No Lord for a Yes Lord has often been painful for me. But I do want a "new mind"--one that takes its cues from the Word of God, not the mass media. I pray for a clear eye to see through the fog of popular opinion, and a will strong enough to withstand the currents--a will surrendered, laid alongside Christ's. He is my model. This means a different set of ambitions, a different definition of happiness, a different standard of judgment altogether. Behavior will change, and very likely it will change enough to make me appear rather odd--but then my Master was thought very odd.

Paul goes on to say that these conditions are "the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do." No wonder we scratch out heads and ask, "What is the secret of knowing the will of God?" We haven't started at the right place--the offering of that all-inclusive sacrifice, our very bodies, ad then the absolute refusal of the world's values.

Make Thy paths known to me, O Lord; teach me Thy ways.
Lead me in Thy truth and teach me;
Thou art God my Savior.
Psalm 25:4,5, NEB

When we cannot see our way
Let us trust and still obey;
He who bids us forward go
Cannot fail the way to show.
Though the sea be deep and wide,
Though a passage seem denied,
Fearless let us still proceed,
Since the Lord vouchsafes to lead.
Anonymous

If there is any man who fears the Lord, he shall be shown the path that he should choose.
Psalm 25:12, NEB

Small Steps by Louis Sachar

Flux

finally ready to start reading again...:)

A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George

"God's perspective on time is different from ours, and we may question His use of time. We may be tempted to think that quiet, hidden time with Him doesn't count--that it doesn't show, it doesn't matter, and no one cares. After all, nobody sees it! There's not glory, no splash, no attention given on those weeks, months, years of waiting on God. No one sees us read and study God's empowering Word; no one is present to watch us memorize and meditate on God's life-changing truths. God alone sees us on bended knee in the heart-wrenching work of prayer, work which He uses to prepare us for ministry.
But then, just like the heroes of the Bible and just like our Savior Himself, one day we are prepared. When the timing is right, when the opportunity for ministry presents itself, we, too, mount up with wings like an eagle-- ready to do God's work! We are then privileged to live out the saying that success comes when preparation meets opportunity. God is responsible for presenting the opportunities-- in His time, place, and manner-- but we are responsible for cooperating with His efforts to prepare us." (189)

No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

The community.... "The men of Umuofia were prepared to fight to the last. They had no illusions about Obi. He was, without a doubt, a very foolish and self-willed young man. But this was not the time to go into that. The fox must be chased away first; after that the hen might be warned about wandering into the bush." (6)

"Obi admitted that his people had a sizable point. What they did not know was that, having labored in sweat and tears to enroll a kinsman among the shining elite, they had to keep him there. Having made him a member of an exclusive club whose members greet one another with 'How's the car behaving?' did they expect him to turn around and answer: 'I'm sorry, but my car is off the road. You see I couldn't pay the insurance premium'? That would be letting the side down in a way that was quite unthinkable. Almost as unthinkable as a masked spirit in the old Ibo society answering another's esoteric salutation: 'I'm sorry, my friend, but I don't understand your strange language. I'm but a human being wearing a mask.' No, these things could not be. Ibo people, in their fair-mindedness, have devised a proverb which says that it is not right to ask a man with elephantiasis of the scrotum to take on smallpox as well, when thousands of other people have not had even their share of small diseases. No doubt it is not right. But it happens. 'Na so dis world be,' they say." (113)

Disciplines of a Beautiful Woman by Anne Ortlund

This book I found Grandma Ellie's shelf, and it turned out to be just what I needed for my Spring Break '08. I knew what it was about right from the name, and knew that I needed to cultivate the disciplines that lead to a beautiful woman. There was a lot about the priorities that are necessary to being shrewd and making good choices. There were a few of her teachings that she passed on as "the best way" that were really things that had just worked for her, but there were also a lot of things that had worked for her that will work for me. And I believe I saw through to the heart of it, that it is through cultivating a heart that is obedient and disciplined and correspondent behavior that God is in some way most free to work in us.

Too Busy Not To Pray

Two misguided approaches-- "I'm concerned that these people are so heavenly minded that they are of little earthly use. What they try to pawn off aw divine leading is really a very human form of irresponsibility.... I think it's wrong for you to put your hands in your pockets and your brains in a drawer, jump off the pinnacle and expect God to catch you because you're already on your way down..... However, some people go to the other extreme...and become antisupernaturalists... Accustomed to walking by sight, steering their own ships and making unilateral decisions, they are squeamish about letting the Holy Spirit begin his supernatural ministry in their lives" (136-138)

"If an ordinary car engine turns four thousand revolutions per minute, some racing motors can turn up to ten thousand.... Getting caught up in that intense pace can be rewarding! It's exciting when the adrenaline starts to flow and you get on a roll, when your motor starts racing faster and faster. But it leaves precious little time for quiet moments with God." (124)
"Never a dull moment; never a reflective moment either. Frightened, I ask myself, Where does the still, small voice of God fit into our hectic lives? When do we allow him to lead and guide and correct and affirm? And if this seldom or never happens, how can we lead truly authentic Christian lives?" (125)

"Maintaining good prayer habits is nonnegotiable. I know that no discipline will, in and of itself, create a relationship between God and me. At the same time, I know that I will not develop a rich, rewarding prayer life if I try to do it without discipline." (45)

The Four Loves by CS Lewis

SUCH a worthwhile book. CS Lewis articulates what I'd only thought about thinking. At times a bit abstract for my limited mind, but I still appreciated it so very much. It makes good points about the nature of love, which with the limited tool of English, would make my attitude toward ice cream seem comparable to God's very nature... I'll read this one again one day and love it even more.

Your People Shall Be My People by Dan Finto

Zorro by Isabel Allende

"I swear to defend the weak and fight for justice!"

Oh if only it were as seamless an adventure as this narrative makes it... But there is a lot said here about what motivates a "hero" and I appreciate that it supports the idea that no one is perfect, but it sure shows how alluring and inspiring it is to hear of someone doing something.