I am not what I would call an avid reader. I read very slowly through a handful of books each year, and return regularly to old books. But I'm seeking to be better about sharing the good things that I gain with those who God has placed in my sphere of influence. Toward that end, I felt led to write up some of my key take-aways from my most impactful reads this year. Here you go!
1. Hearing God by Dallas Willard
a. Abiding in God means regular, 2-way conversation. It means friendship with Him—a relationship much broader than that of an authority figure and his underling.
b. Understanding how to expect God to speak to you is important because otherwise you’ll either have a complete lack of confidence about it or be completely misdirected.
c. We must think of ourselves as capable of having the same kinds of experiences as did Paul, Barnabas, or Elijah—not because of any merit of ours, but because we have the same God they did and it’s all Him.
d. Although blind faith is not to be despised (far from it!), abstract belief in doctrines of God’s presence and power are not enough to sustain ongoing spiritual growth. We invited to “reign in life through Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:17). This has to involve much more than ascent to doctrine.
e. God can use forced circumstances to move us along in His will if He must, but He would much prefer to converse with us and draw us lovingly into seeing His way of things (Psalm 32:8-9)
f. There are certainly dangers to encouraging people to hear from God, as people can certainly go off the deep end, but disaster may also come from going off the shallow end, so “what must be done pastorally is to lead people into an understanding of the voice of God and how it works in their lives.”
2. The Life of A.B. Simpson by A.E. Thompson
a. “The true attitude of the consecrated heart is one of a constant yielding and constant receiving.”
b. Prayer is “the hand of the child touching the arm of the Father and moving the wheels of the universe”
c. “Jesus is not only the pattern, but the source of our life, and it is the business of the Holy Spirit, day by day, and moment by moment, to transfer His qualities into our life. Do we need patience? We just draw it from Him through the Holy Spirit. Do we need power? We take a deeper draught of His fullness and He becomes our power. Do we need love? We draw a little nearer to Christ the Loving One, and through the Holy Spirit His love is shed abroad in our hearts…. So the deeper Christian life becomes as simple as the life of a babe, as instinctive as breathing; as high and lofty in its standard of righteousness as the very holiness of Diety. It is at once transcendently great, and yet delightfully easy.”
d. Consecration, seeing our low estate, dedicating all of it to Him, and intentionally looking to Him for everything as our modus operandum, is the prerequisite for God to blossom the life of Christ within us.
3. Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
a. The spiritual life is the most significant one. All other aspects of the human experience both draw from it and flow into it, and spiritual formation is what life is all about.
b. Spiritual passivity is one of our greatest dangers as children of God. Just as the promised land had to be congquered and won by the children of God, we too must take hold of that which is offered to us.
c. “knowing” in the Bible refers not to what we would call “head knowledge,” but to interactive relationship—to actually engagement with what is known. So, knowing about God and giving ascent to the correct doctrines is not enough. We must pursue interactive relationship with Him.
d. “Wanting God to be God is very different from wanting God to help me.”
e. “One should seriously inquire if to live in a world permeated with God and the knowledge of God is something they themselves truly desire.”
f. If you want to grow spiritually there are actual steps you can take toward that end. Simply desiring to grow and continuing to do the same things that have not produced growth in the past is likely not the best course of action.
g. Feelings play a super important role in our spiritual life. We often let them rule our spiritual reality, but we must not allow this. Feelings must be made to serve and promote the spiritual truths we believe. We may start by feeling a strong revulsion toward the wrong feelings and taking steps to avoid those, and then speaking truth to ourselves about the feelings which the Holy Spirit would impart to us: love, joy, peace, hope, contentment, etc.
4. The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen
a. One who would lead a hungry soul toward living water does well to understand and articulate descriptively His own journey toward finding that water. This applies not just to initial acceptance of the truth, but of growing in spiritual formation as well. People need help understanding what their actual barriers to spiritual growth are, and they need to come to understand it through the lens of a living story.
b. One who would lead a hungry soul toward living water must embody compassion above and beyond their understanding and wisdom. Compassion must be the vehicle of good news.
c. One who would lead a hungry soul toward living water must have eyes to search for and discover where, among the brokenness and off-putting exteriors of our culture, are the seeds of hunger and desire that have been planted by our Heavenly Father.
5. Renovation of the Church by Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken
This was a super-engaging true narrative about what happened when “a seeker church discovers spiritual formation.” I really appreciated hearing how the Lord got ahold of two pastors, changed their entire vision for their church, and led them toward pursuing a church that was more about quality than quantity. They were refreshingly honest about the highs and lows of the process, and helpfully descriptive about the things large and small things they did in their church to start nurturing spiritual formation and growth rather than mere surface level engagement with the church. The book is not so much a how-to as a case study offered for the benefit of church leaders who like them would seek to embrace the idea that apprenticeship to Jesus is not optional for believers, but rather the very thing that churches ought to be helping people practice.
On the outcome of their “one thing groups” initiative in which each member of their various small groups intentionally pursued growth in one area with the encouragement, prayer, and spurring on of others in their group:
“Many found that this process of identifying an area needing growth—and then purposefully attending to it—jump-started their journey of spiritual formation. As people gained clarity on where God wanted to move in them, they began orienting their lives around a handful of formational practices and experiences that would invite God’s transforming power: They started practicing unceasing prayer. They memorized scripture. They spent time in solitude. People confessed, prayed, and shared the journey with one another…. Spiritual formation wasn’t a theory anymore. People knew what they could ‘do.’”
Up Next...
At the moment I'm continuing to marinate in Renovation of the Heart (I've actually only made it a little over half way through it because it's so meaty), beginning to find some REALLY refreshing good news in "Jesus the King" by Tim Keller, and looking forward to diving into "The Other Half of Church," which has a podcast that I've already found incredibly impactful, so I'm confident that the book will be awesome as well.
