{"id":460,"date":"2009-05-16T22:41:22","date_gmt":"2009-05-17T02:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/16\/review-of-walking-with-god-by-john-eldredge\/"},"modified":"2009-05-16T22:59:30","modified_gmt":"2009-05-17T02:59:30","slug":"review-of-walking-with-god-by-john-eldredge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=460","title":{"rendered":"Review of Walking with God, by John Eldredge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"walking_with_god.jpg\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Walking with God<\/em><\/p>\n

by John Eldredge<\/p>\n

Thomas Nelson, 2008.\u00a0 218 pages.<\/p>\n

Starred review.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.walkingwithgod.net\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The caption on the front of this book reads, “Talk to Him.\u00a0 Hear from Him.\u00a0 Really.”<\/p>\n

When I was a young college student at Biola University, a popular book was Decision Making and the Will of God.<\/em>\u00a0 What I got out of this book was the idea that God didn’t care about the minute details of our lives.\u00a0 You shouldn’t ask God what color shirt you should wear today or whether you should go to lunch early or late.\u00a0 The book taught that God gives us moral guidelines in the Bible, and within those guidelines we can do what we want.\u00a0 That God would be happy with either wonderful choice of a marriage partner, for example.<\/p>\n

John Eldredge takes a different view.\u00a0 He believes that we can share our daily lives with God, ask His counsel for large and small decisions, and accept His guidance.\u00a0 Honestly, in the past few years as I’ve gone through the fire of being abandoned by my husband, God has been near to me like never before, and I’m finding He is indeed willing to come alongside and help and guide, as John Eldredge describes.\u00a0 It was inspiring to read this account of someone who is trying to live his life, walking with God.<\/p>\n

And the book takes more the form of a journal than of a manual.\u00a0 John Eldredge takes the approach of describing his own walk with God so that we can see how it might look.<\/p>\n

In the Introduction, he says:<\/p>\n

“It is our deepest need, as human beings, to learn to live intimately with God.\u00a0 It is what we were made for. . . .<\/p>\n

“Really now, if you knew you had the opportunity to develop a conversational intimacy with the wisest, kindest, most generous and seasoned person in the world, wouldn’t it make sense to spend your time with that person, as opposed to, say, slogging your way through on your own?<\/p>\n

“Whatever our situation in life — butcher, baker, candlestick maker — our deepest and most pressing need is to learn to walk<\/em> with God.\u00a0 To hear his voice.\u00a0 To follow him intimately.\u00a0 It is the most essential turn of events that could ever take place in the life of any human being, for it brings us back to the source of life.\u00a0 Everything else we long for can then flow forth from this union.”<\/p>\n

As the book begins, he describes why he believes intimacy with God is possible even today:<\/p>\n

“Now, I know, I know — the prevailing belief is that God speaks to his people only <\/em>through the Bible.\u00a0 And let me make this clear: he does speak to us first and foremost through the Bible.\u00a0 That is the basis for our relationship.\u00a0 The Bible is the eternal and unchanging Word of God to us.\u00a0 It is such a gift, to have right there in black and white God’s thoughts toward us.\u00a0 We know right off the bat that any other supposed revelation from God that contradicts the Bible is not to be trusted.\u00a0 So I am not minimizing in any way the authority of the Scripture or the fact that God speaks to us through the Bible.<\/p>\n

“However, many Christians believe that God only <\/em>speaks to us through the Bible.<\/p>\n

“The irony of that belief is that’s not what the Bible says.<\/p>\n

“The Bible is filled with stories of God talking to his people.\u00a0 Abraham, who is called the friend of God, said, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me . . .’ (Genesis 24:7).\u00a0 God spoke to Moses ‘as a man speaks with his friend’ (Exodus 33:11).\u00a0 He spoke to Aaron too: ‘Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites’ (Exodus 6:13).\u00a0 And David: ‘In the course of time, David inquired of the Lord.\u00a0 “Shall I go up to one of the towns of Judah?” he asked.\u00a0 The Lord said, “Go up.”\u00a0 David asked, “Where shall I go?”\u00a0 “To Hebron,” the Lord answered’ (2 Samuel 2:1).\u00a0 The Lord spoke to Noah.\u00a0 The Lord spoke to Gideon.\u00a0 The Lord spoke to Samuel.\u00a0 The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n

“I can hear the objections even now:\u00a0 ‘But that was different.\u00a0 Those were special people called to special tasks.’\u00a0 And we are not special people called to special tasks?\u00a0 I refuse to believe that.\u00a0 And I doubt that you want to believe it either, in your heart of hearts.<\/p>\n

“But for the sake of argument, notice that God also speaks to ‘less important’ characters in the Bible.\u00a0 God spoke to Hagar, the servant girl of Sarah, as she was running away. . . .\u00a0 In the New Testament, God speaks to a man named Ananias who plays a small role in seven verses in Acts 9. . . .<\/p>\n

“Now, if God doesn’t also <\/em>speak to us, why would he have given us all these stories of him speaking to others?\u00a0 ‘Look — here are hundreds of inspiring and hopeful stories about how God spoke to his people in this and that situation.\u00a0 Isn’t it amazing?\u00a0 But you can’t have that.\u00a0 He doesn’t speak like that anymore.’\u00a0 That makes no sense at all.\u00a0 Why would God give you a book of exceptions?\u00a0 This is how I <\/em>used to relate to my people, but I don’t do that anymore.<\/em>\u00a0 What good would a book of exceptions do you?\u00a0 That’s like giving you the owner’s manual for a Dodge even though you drive a Mitsubishi.\u00a0 No, the Bible is a book of examples <\/em>of what it looks like to walk with God.”<\/p>\n

Here is another book of examples, exploring the question of what it looks like to walk with God in today’s world.\u00a0 There’s food for thought, and there’s inspiration and encouragement.<\/p>\n

God, what is the life you want me to live?<\/em><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking with God by John Eldredge Thomas Nelson, 2008.\u00a0 218 pages. Starred review. http:\/\/www.walkingwithgod.net\/ The caption on the front of this book reads, “Talk to Him.\u00a0 Hear from Him.\u00a0 Really.” When I was a young college student at Biola University, a popular book was Decision Making and the Will of God.\u00a0 What I got out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,35,2,4,42,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-musings","category-nonfiction-review","category-personal-growth","category-starred-review","category-true-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}