Everyday Battles: Knowing God Through Our Daily Conflicts is the fourth and last of Bob Schultz’s books for boys and young men. I read it with my youngest son. The author passed away before this book was completed and his daughter got what he had ready for print and added an epilogue.

Bob covered a lot of ground in the book, from confrontations, chastisement, fightings within, refuge, and more. One chapter discussed why some OT battles came about when the temple of God was neglected or filled with abominations and what lessons that has for us. You would expect some discussion about the armor described in Ephesians 6, but only a couple of pieces are mentioned. I don’t know if he meant to get to the rest of it before he passed away. He discusses how a good, loving, wise and kind God allows battles.

His overall theme is that God has something to teach you during battles: something about yourself, but mainly something about Himself.

One quote I especially liked was in the context of boys wrestling. He discusses why he thinks it is okay to allow it, right and wrong times and places for it, and then he says:

If you find yourself frustrated because you’re losing, don’t lash out in anger. Discover why you’re getting beat. Let it motivate you to learn new skills or develop more strength. I wrestled a guy called Herfy for years and never won a match, yet I gained many tricks I’ve successfully used since (p. 15-16).

There is a lot of wisdom there that can be applied to many areas.

This quote bothered me a little at first:

The one thing I want to learn in life is to understand and practically experience abiding in Christ. I’m not looking for some Bible lesson to discuss or some theory to question. I want to live in harmony with the One who created the universe while I’m building houses, driving my truck, walking hand in hand with my wife or my daughters. I want to hear His voice, watch Him work, and follow Him in every adventure He wants to lead me through (p. 31).

At first reading it sounded to me like he was downplaying Bible reading and study in favor of seeking God through experience. But as I thumbed through several pages while preparing for this review, I was reminded that he referred to the Bible often, much more than I had remembered, and drew much of what he taught from the Bible. So I think perhaps what he is getting at here is that he doesn’t want his spiritual experience to be all academic, but rather he wanted it to carry through to the rest of his life.

I also expected to see some discussion on what we commonly hear of as the enemies of Christians and how to combat them: the world (I John 5:4-5), the flesh (Galatians 5:16-17), and the devil (James 4:7-8, Matthew 4:1-11, Ephesians 6:17). There was some mention of fighting the flesh, but not much. Again, I don’t know if that’s something he would have included if he had lived long enough to complete the book, but my son and I are discussing some of these passages in the aftermath of reading the book.

My feelings immediately after the book were disappointment at what he didn’t include what I would have, but then if you get any five people, even any five Christians to write a book on one topic, you’re probably going to end up with five very different books though they might cover some of the same ground. And as I went back over parts of the book for review, I was reminded of many good aspects of it and good things he did bring out. The book isn’t necessarily a manual for how to fight battles, though he discusses some of that: it’s mainly an encouragement to seek the heart of God and draw close to Him through the battles He allows.

The first Amish fiction I ever read was Beverly Lewis‘s The Shunning some years ago. I don’t think I had heard of Beverly before that, and I am not sure what drew me to the book except for maybe curiosity about the Amish shunning. I enjoyed the book and have read everything of Beverly’s ever since (except for her books for younger people).

There is much about the Amish to admire: their gentleness, their work ethic and industriousness, their sense of family, their willingness to forgive evidenced some years ago after a tragic shooting.

I suppose all of those elements plus a curiosity about them and their ways has driven burgeoning market for Amish fiction in recent years.

At first I thought all these people were just copying Beverly, and out of loyalty to her I didn’t read any others. But I don’t think she would want people to feel that way, and I’m sure she’s not the only one who is knowledgeable about the Amish. I do tend to trust her perspective because of her grandmother’s having been Amish.

I especially appreciate that Beverly makes a distinction between Amish who are believers and those who aren’t. In some of her books, the characters are caught in the system, so to speak, even though it doesn’t satisfy them or meet their needs, and they eventually see the light and come to faith in Christ, and sometimes that costs them. Some leave the Amish for the Mennonites. Other characters have quietly become believers and stay, speaking when and however they can about Christ. And others are in an Amish community that is made of of true believers.

And this is what concerns me about the bulk of Amish fiction. The one Amish-based book I read that wasn’t written by Beverly wasn’t clear on this point: an Englisher with a variety of problems escaped the pressures of modern life to live with the Amish for a while, struggled with faith issues, was told, basically, “Live like us and you’ll catch on eventually.” I don’t know how other authors portray it, but I think we have to be careful not to think of the Amish as just another branch of Christianity. Tim Challies reviewed a book called Growing Up Amish a while back. I’ve not read the book, but I can identify with what was excerpted there. We need to remember that by and large their trust is in their system, their church membership, rather than in Christ, and even for those who are believers, their ideas of what is “worldly” is often determined by the bishop and may be far removed from Scriptural principles. Their communities are shot through with extreme legalism and extreme punishment for stepping outside “the rules.”

I am concerned about the over-romanticizing of our thinking in regard to them. I have a Christian friend who jokes about “running off to join the Amish” when life gets too hectic and pressured. I always want to say, “Are you kidding?” The amount of sheer hard work would do many of us in very quickly, but beyond that, I don’t think actually living among them would be what we think it would be. I think we can still read Amish fiction and I think we can still admire the good characteristics of them, but we need to exercise discernment.