Christian nonfiction | Stray Thoughts

When I saw More Than These: A Woman’s Love for God by June Kimmel featured at By the Book, my interest was piqued for three reasons: JustRead Publicity Tours was sponsoring a giveaway of the ebook; I had used some of June Kimmel’s Bible studies before; June’s son-in-law was our youth and music pastor at the church we attended when we first moved to Tennessee, and he and his wife are some of the dearest people on the planet. Fortunately, I won a copy of the book!

The premise of the book is that we have multiple facets of our lives that vie for first place in our hearts, crowding out our first love for God. Some of these are God’s good gifts, like family, friends, and ministry. But when they take His place, we’re not loving either Him or them in the best way. Others are sinful aspects that we need to put to death. So June examines several of these issues, couching them in a time when she and her husband felt led of the Lord to move from South Carolina, where they were near all of their grown children and grandchildren and had jobs and ministries they loved, to Wisconsin for a new ministry opportunity.

A few quotes from the book that stood out to me:

Without love, our good efforts are empty and hollow. We are useless and unprofitable if our service, however noble, is done without supreme love for God.

We must be in the Word to know God’s promises. Sometimes people expect God to do what he never promised to do.

May we see beyond the circumstances of the moment and praise God continually. May our fear never exceed our love for God.

Do you have goals for tomorrow? Did that ambition begin at the feet of the Lord Jesus? Our plans may be exactly what God has for us, but is it the dream we long for or the Master?

We all have positive and negative experiences to recall, but God doesn’t want us living in the past or focusing on it instead of Him. God simply wants to use our past as a tool to shape us into His image.

Unless we surrender our fearfulness to the Lord, it will draw our focus off the Savior by consuming our thoughts. The circumstances intended to draw us closer to the Master will attempt to capture the throne of our heart.

June encourages us to “diligently study His Word and endeavor to take the truths we learn and turn them into daily actions that demonstrate the goodness of our God.” The more we get to know Him, the more our love for Him grows.

I would have preferred the study questions at the end of each chapter rather than all together at the end of the book, but that’s just a matter of personal preference.

Thanks to June, By the Book, JustRead Publicity Tours, and Ambassador International for the giveaway and for sending me a copy of the book!

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Literary Musing Monday, Carole’s Books You Loved)

I had read a number of Cynthia Heald‘s Bible studies in my early married days, but I couldn’t remember much about them. So when I came across Drawing Near to the Heart of God: Encouragement for Your Lifetime Journey (previously published as A Woman’s Journey to the Heart of God), I gave it a try not just for the content, but also to reacquaint myself with Heald’s writing.

Heald frames the Christian life as a journey. The first section covers “Essentials for the Journey,” like “Traveling Light” (things to set aside), “Righteous Clothing” (holiness), “The Guidebook” (the Bible), “Fellowship With Our Guide” (abiding in Christ), and others. Section Two focuses on “The Destination: God’s Heart” and spends time on some of His attributes. The last section. “Enjoying the Journey,” covers “Bearing His Fruit,” “Experiencing His Rest,” “Living for the Eternal,” and “Bringing God Glory.”

Heald writes in an easily understood style. She particularly handles Biblical stories well, drawing the reader right in to what the character was probably feeling without a lot of extra-biblical conjecture.

A few of the many quotes that stood out to me:

My journey to the heart of God does not begin tomorrow; the choices I make today determine whether I move towards Him or toward self and the world (p. 20).

[Re the Israelites failure to obey God and go into the promised land the first time] The people decided to focus on the potential risks instead of the promised blessings (p. 47).

My definition of abiding is “consistently sitting at the feet of Jesus and continually depending upon Him by listening to His words with a heart to obey” (p. 68).

When you fear God, you will be freed to listen to His “fear nots” (p. 87).

We cannot expect to make steady progress on our spiritual journey if we insist on taking little side trips away from the highway of holiness (p. 110).

Since we can do nothing to captivate [God’s] love, we can do nothing to lose it (p.136).

God has His time schedule, and He uses what we call delays to produce in us patience and trust and to accomplish His purposes in establishing His kingdom (p. 234).

To understand the difference between living for heaven and demanding that life here on earth be like heaven is an important lesson in learning to live for the eternal (p. 241).

I disagreed with her in a few spots, like when she said the Bible is “one of the best ways to hear God speak” (p. 244). It’s not just one of the best – it is the primary way we hear from God, some would say the only way. She speaks of “hearing God’s voice” in a couple of places, but I don’t think she means it in terms of an audible voice or extra-biblical revelation. This would have concerned me more if she had written anything doctrinally questionable. I also wouldn’t endorse everyone she quotes.

But for the most part, this is a fairly solid explanation of how to grow in the Christian life. Even though I was already familiar with these truths, it was good to go over them again.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Literary Musing Monday, Carole’s Books You Loved)