“Sacred Waiting” by David Timms

(Disclosure: this was a free book sent to me by way of the Bethany House book review bloggers program.)

David Timms takes on an interesting subject in his book, Sacred Waiting: Waiting on God in a World that Waits for Nothing. He approaches the need for Christians, sometimes, to wait.

Not to sit around doing nothing, but to be ready to do what God wants us to do without rushing anything. More precisely, to wait until it’s God’s time for us to act.

In general, this concept is one that is very challenging. Most of us want to get things done, and get them done now. We’re not really into waiting. After all, if it’s a good thing that x project is done, then we should do it, right? Only, of course, if this is when God wants it done.

Timms divides the book into two parts. The first looks at the role of waiting in the lives of various Biblical figures. Through the lives of Noah, Abraham, David, Moses, and Jesus he points to the fact that just because God wants a thing done doesn’t mean He wants it rushed. He wants it done on His timing, and when it best serves His purposes. There might be a clear reason for it — such as waiting for Moses to be less impulsive (and prone to killing people in anger) — or there might not — such as Abraham and Sarah waiting for their promised son. In any case, the timing serves God’s glory and His people need to learn to be content with His plan.

The second part of the book addresses the liturgical calendar and its celebration of waiting, through Lent, Pentecost, Advent, Easter, and what Timms calls “the Kingdom Wait.” His point through these is that the Church knows of the need to celebrate and remember the times when we’ve been called simply to wait for what the Lord is doing, rather than running out on our own to do things.

This is not a very large book, with only about 180 pages. However, it’s well worth the read. Rather than telling us how to improve ourselves, what to do, and why we should be taking charge of something now, it tells us to sit back, listen to God, and do what we’re told when we’re told … and not before.

For a world that, as Timms notes, waits for nothing it’s a message that we really need to hear.

Untouchable?

My pastor’s most recent blog post is well worth checking out …

Untouchables! asks who it is that Christians treat as untouchable, and how that relates to our call to reflect the love of Christ.

Christians Excusing Assassination?

From Polycarp at The Church of Jesus Christ:

Last week, as the sniper shot rang out mortally wounding President Obama, the country woke up to the historical fact that idle words are indeed the devil’s playground. History will long note  and judge those, who while the ambulance was attempting to carry the dying man to the nearest hospital, surrounded the vehicle, only to have the Secret Service fire into the crowd, wounding several, killing one. Some of the protesters stood idly by, crouched in prayer, not for the life of the man on the stretcher, but for the death. With angry shouts of ‘Death to the Muslim’ and ‘I want my country back’ ringing in his ear, the 44th President of the United States passed from this life.

The full article is well worth the read.

“North! or Be Eaten” by Andrew Peterson

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book for free in order to participate in the North! or Be Eaten blog tour. However, I was not given On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, which I reviewed here.

North! or Be Eaten is the second of the Wingfeather Saga. If you want the quick summary of this review: I love it! I love this book, and I am eagerly looking forward to the third book.

North! or Be Eaten picks up where the first book left off. I don’t suggest reading it before On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. But since you don’t want to miss that book, either, it’s no big imposition.

N!obE loses nothing from the original. The story retains the charm, the family dynamics, the adventure, the silliness, and the genuine heart of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. The heroes aren’t perfect, though they’re trying to be the best they can. Their failures, though, are a big part of what makes the story worthwhile.

Andrew Peterson is better known as a Christian songwriter and singer — possibly my favorite living singer. He is also, however, an established lover of fantasy writing and young adults’ literature in general. The Wingfeather Saga, though, deserves a place among the great stories of YA fantasy.

It is very well worth the read, for young readers or adults.

From here, I have to warn you, I get into spoilers:

At the end of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, the Igiby family (children Leeli, Janner, and Tink; their mother Nia, her father Podo Henner, and their uncle Artham) has decided to make its way to the Ice Prairies, along with bookseller Oskar N. Reteep. There, they hope, the reptilian Fangs of Dang (the army which invaded and conquered the land of Skree years ago) are weaker. In N!obE, they are making their way north. Chased by Fangs and trolls through the Glipwood Forest, they have confrontations with the enemies as well as the wild creatures — the fearsome toothy cow making more appearances, and the nauseating gargan rockroach figuring prominently.

Podo has always been called a former pirate, but in this book we learn more about his past. None of it savory. He was a part of a villainous band known as the Stranders, and still worse — he was a hunter of sea dragons. That bit of his history nearly costs the Igiby family their lives.

Janner, who has learned his duty as the Throne Warden of Anniera, is responsible for protecting his younger brother. He has to come to terms with the fact that, really, he fails. Profoundly. Often.

Tink, the rightful High King of Anniera, has to come to terms with his duty. He doesn’t want it, and tried to shirk it. This leads to amazingly dramatic scenes between Janner and Tink. Wonderfully done.

Artham, once the Throne Warden, is explored in greater depth. In this book we learn what happened to him after the fall of Anniera and why he became the town fool, Peet the Sock-Man. We also learn what happened to his hands.

Peterson has lost none of his knack to pull emotionally at the reader. From sweet and gentle moments of grandfatherly affection as Podo cares for Leeli, to heartbreaking moments of sacrifice, he’s got complete control of the reader’s heartstrings from start to finish.

I know this review is getting long, so I’ll draw it to a close …

Andrew Peterson has given us another gift in North! or Be Eaten. The book is every bit as fun, exciting, dramatic, and tear-jerking as you could want in a book. Moments of levity and silliness are mixed in with real, passionate drama. You owe it to yourself, if you are even slightly a fan of the genre, to read the Wingfeather Saga.

I will have more to say later. For now, I think you have a book to read!

“The Naked Gospel” Group Writing Project

First of all, I’d like to thank Dan King at BibleDude.net for including me in this group writing project. Second, I’d like to make it clear that I did receive a free copy of this book for participating.

The book is The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley. This is a book about taking the time to get to the real, unvarnished, unadulterated Gospel. Not adding more to it, not trying to disguise it, not making it into something else. If we believe that the Gospel is true and important, then we should want to know what it really says, and not be content with an imitation.

Part 1 of the book is entitled “Obsessive Christianity Disorder,” and I am pretty sure that most Christians reading this chapter, short though it is, will see themselves in it. The disorder is very simple — feeling compelled by outside forces to be more of a Christian, and never feeling like we’re doing enough. Andrew Farley tells about his time in high school and college, feeling like he never had the right Christian personality or did the right things. Not surprisingly, this resulted in massive frustration.

Being a Christian, to him at that point, went working really hard and making himself miserable. It also meant not accomplishing much with all of his efforts.

That isn’t exactly what Jesus called us to do or to be.

I look at some of my own life and I know the feeling. There was a time when I felt like I must be some kind of inferior Christian because I hadn’t read all of the right books. I didn’t own the right commentaries, I never compared to the original languages, and almost never compared Bible versions side by side to see what I could glean from that.

You might notice that none of those things is actually ever mentioned in the Bible as an obligation of a believer.

It is so very easy to try to turn being a good Christian into a how-to checklist. After all, we like instructions. We also like working hard and for our harder efforts to mean that we’re rewarded more. Much like your performance review at work — you do your job description, you work hard, you get a good raise.

The problem is, being a Christian doesn’t work that way. It never has and never will. That’s why there’s no such set of instructions in the Bible. It’s stuff that we’ve added.

The point of The Naked Gospel is to … well, … strip that away. Look at the Gospel as it is, not as we embellish it. Not what we can make it into. The Gospel is Good News, not another set of demands to cause stress. Let’s choose the better thing, as Jesus said to Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42 (NLT, courtesy of BibleGateway.com):

As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹ Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”⁴¹ But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! ⁴² There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”