The debate of whether a person is “born gay” or not is an extremely sensitive one in our culture, and it blurs more than gender expectations. Sexuality, and its worship, has transformed our culture into an animalistic one in many arenas. Sane voices which attempt to speak to the issue of homosexuality are often screamed out rather than appreciated or soberly considered.

Out of a Far Countryis a story of one family’s experience with homosexuality and a life gone rogue. Angela Yuan and her son Christopher have co-written their account of Chris’ coming out and subsequent embrace of a lifestyle bent on self-destruction.

It’s not the story of a typical family that finds a child has not lived up to their expectations. But it is a story that will connect with many. At times, I felt that the publication of this book is another example of “extreme testimony.” In many ways, it’s a modern day example of the parable of the prodigal son. I always hesitate to promote extremes because they’re not indicative of most people’s experience, and they tend to magnify the past rather than the present.

Honestly, the best part of the book is the last three chapters as you get to finally hear Christopher process his conversion to Christianity and his reflections on holy sexuality.

“Holy sexuality means focusing all our sexual feelings and behaviors exclusively toward one person, our spouse.

Chris concludes, “The truth is that I did not need to be attracted to women in general to get married; I needed to be attracted to only one woman.”

I’d encourage anyone who is personally experiencing the decision by a family member or friend to choose homosexuality to read this book. The Yaun’s story is compelling and moving.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking for more information or theological implications, you’ll need to look elsewhere. This book has very little of that other than some brief reflections.

By the way, I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. I’m grateful for their Blogging for Books program.

I rarely rate a book “5-star,” and I may actually need to downgrade my enthusiasm about this book to four stars, but it’s been so immensely helpful, encouraging, and practical for our church’s staff team at this point that I gave it the highest mark.

This is not a book about “church growth.” Rest assured. I too grow weary about books that tell you how to grow your church in 90 days with nothing but poems and parking.

Exponential is a field manual. It’s the tome of Dave and Jon Ferguson who are brothers and pastors of Community Christian Church in Chicago. The book tells their story, but it does so from the perspective of spiritual expectation.

We don’t grow the church; God grows His church as His leaders are faithful to equip His people. So Exponential demonstrates how CCC has organized their ministry in expectation of God’s desire to reach people.

Things you’ll find in the book:

• An imperative to develop systems in your church
• A strategy for developing leaders who develop leaders
• A bedrock solid conviction that when godly, submitted leaders pursue the glory of God, He will grow first the leaders and then the church.

Right now, we are doling out Exponential books like candy to our key leaders and volunteers. Everyone needs to grow in expectations, but particularly church leaders. The Fergusons reveal how God has led them to develop leaders and organize for growth. Our leaders have already found much to be encouraged by as we lean forward in faith to offer His salvation to all peoples.

The God we serve has promised to be a God of impossibilities. Let’s serve Him with loving obedience and expect to participate in His great work. If we serve Him, the results are “exponential.”

I thoroughly enjoyed reading AND. I was recently challenged to consider the tyranny of the word “or.” Essentially, we use “or” in places to indicate a choice between two things that may not need to be placed at either end of a spectrum, especially in organizational life. (i.e., Do you prefer contemporary worship OR expository preaching?) We need to be much more watchful about how we use “or” in leadership, because we may set people up to have to lean in a particular direction when in reality we should encourage better balance.

This book does just that in reference to the sending and gathering of the church. The mission of the church is go into the world and make disciples. There is a “going” (they call it scattering) mode to the identity of the church.

On the other hand, it’s also imperative that the church gathers. It’s plain in the New Testament that new believers and the disciples of Christ came together corporately for worship, instruction and encouragement.

BOTH are needed.

In today’s western Christian culture, there have tended to be folks on the scattered extreme lobbing criticisms at the institutional, corporate and gathered church. Some of their points are valid.

On the other hand, the gathered church has valid concerns about the organic, decentralized, house church movement.

As pastors of a church called Adullam, authors Matt Smay and Hugh Halter encourage us to not choose “or” but to choose “and.” We need both. They have strong words for those in both camps and urge extremists to be faithful to scripture, consistent in mission and authentic in community.

One of the best chapters in the book is their rewrite of the modality and sodality principles first expounded by renown missiologist Ralph Winter.

Should you read this book OR not?

Christians struggle to know God because they live prayerless lives. They fail in representing His heart to the nations because they have failed in this critical area of relationship. Prayer defines our experience with God. If we don’t pray, we can’t claim to know the heart of the Father.

Eric & Leslie Ludy’s book Wrestling Prayer was recommended to me by one of the collegians in our church. It’s been a significant addition to my understanding of prayer, and it’s also going to be a continuing shaper of my prayer life as I continue to meditate on some of the thoughts that are shared in it.

A few words to describe the book: Inspirational. Deeply challenging.

It will indeed help you “recalibrate your version of Christianity to the Almighty’s standard.” (Ludy)

I really do look forward to an enriched prayer life due to it’s encouragement. I readily recommend it to anyone looking for a powerful provocation for prayer.

A few notes. It’s definitely an imaginative book. It uses passionate imagery and language to make its case. If you’re looking for a good study on prayer, this is not it. Its theology is a little stunted since it relies so heavily on moving imagery, challenge, great quotes, experience and anecdotes.

It takes great liberties with scripture – using mainly allegory rather than sound interpretation to make its points. I don’t contest many of their conclusions, but I detest how people want to make a sound point but then twist scriptural analogy to do so. They could have made equally sound points without sticking to the story of David and his Mighty Men.

Any analogy, when forced, breaks down. In their effort to glorify David’s mighty men and compare them to the disciples of Jesus in this book-long analogy, they neglect to observe that the mighty men may not have actually been godly men. They were loyal to David, but they may not have been loyal to God.

In fact, Joab, who is David’s right hand man (and held up as a continuing example in Wrestling Prayer, expressly defies David’s orders on at least three different instances, committing murder. His offense is so eggregious that one of David’s last wishes was for his son Solomon to kill him, “Deal with him according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to the grave in peace.” (1 Kings 2:6)

I still recommend the book, but read it with discernment. Don’t miss the powerful and compelling arguments that are presented. If received with humility, they will be useful for a prayer transformation in your life.

I plowed through the book. And I do mean plow. It was a tough, arduous task at many points. Author Mark Bauerlein throws so many studies and statistics at you, that at points you wonder how believable the book really is. Any tome that relies on studies and stats has questionable legitimacy since they are so dependent on subjective creation and interpretation to arrive at their information.

Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University and has worked as a director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment of the Arts (not one of my favorite institutions, by the way). He’s got the credentials, and if you can wade through the book, he’s got a point.

The book’s sensational title is a little misleading, however. Yes, the Milennials of today are consumed with technology, status updates and the “now.” But it’s not the digital age that is killing our culture. It’s the distractions afforded by it. The young are no longer encouraged to pursue depth. They’d rather check Facebook.

Bauerlein’s last chapter is his most profound, inspirational and discouraging. In it, he concludes his thesis and raises our expectations for an informed citizenry.

Essentially, the United States is in an intelligence deficit rather than an economic deficit. And it’s only growing worse. Today’s collegians are uninformed and have rejected knowledge and tradition that not only connects culture with its history, but sustains a unique, selfless, visionary people.

Many reviewers seek to marginalize Bauerlein’s points by lobbing the same old stones over the fence. “He’s just against young people.” “He doesn’t understand the new ways of learning.” “It’s the same argument that old codgers have had against the younger generation forever.”

However, let’s not ridicule what we cannot rationalize. One would be hard-pressed to compare the writings by leaders of our country during the 19th century in their scope, breadth and depth to the writings/communication of our leaders today. It should be evident that there is an intelligence gap, a wisdom gap, a distinct other-worldliness that elicits wonder at earlier generations.

The ideas, philosophies and energized contentions they expounded make today’s societal leaders look like kindergartners. Bauerlein’s assertions in “No More Culture Warriors” simply indicate that we are not raising a future generation of intellectuals that have the mental equipment to process the conceptual framework that will anchor our country’s future in wisdom and worthiness.

Today’s young citizens have cost off knowledge and tradition in favor or narcissism – which is fed and enabled by the digital age. Whereas the opportunity is available (there’s more discovery, education, and sheer information simply on the net), the desire is absent.

Bauerlein delves into political theory in the last chapter as well to conclude his thoughts. The Founders, he asserts, knew that a healty democracy would be dependent on an informed citizenry. But we have abdicated (and the young more so) our responsibility to be vigilant, watchful and participatory in favor of being entertained.

Democracy requires an informed electorate, and knowledge deficits equal civic decay.

Our present state, he claims, is the result of the culture war of 1955-1975. It was one won by youth. In it, the institutions and wisdom of the elders was refuted, and all things shiny, new and rebellious were prized. Youth became sovereign, while the Establishment became irrelevant. With that culture war, our history and inherited culture was cast into the dust bins of that generation, not to be trusted, embraced or allowed to return. One generation stood in judgement on all those before it and proclaimed theirs superior.

The author pleads with an adult society to understand that reading, study, books and ideas are gold mines worth discovering and treasuring. He quotes Columbia professor John Erskine, who said in 1915 that we have “the moral obligation to be intelligent.” In other words, THINK, people.

The latest social and leisure dispositions of the young are killing the culture…

We need a steady stream of rising men and women to replenish the institutions, to become strong military leaders and wise political leaders, dedicated journalists and demanding teachers, judges and muckrakers, scholars and critics and artists.

If we don’t help raise the expectations and vision of the young, the authors says, “they will be remembered as the fortunate ones who were unworthy of the privileges they inherited.” If he’s right, the inheritance they leave their generations will be unworthy of record. Imagine a society sustained by informality, 140-character banal “tweets,” and “leaders” who are led by polls rather than conviction.

It’s stupefying.

I was given an advanced reading copy of this book by Bethany House Publishers to read for a blog review. I wondered if the title was simply a sensational teaser to yet another book without much substance. I assure you; the book is worth reading and digesting! I can wholeheartedly recommend it – but especially for pastors, speakers and Christian leaders.

Through careful research and much re-interpretation of faulty explanations of existing research, sociologist Bradley Wright paints a new picture of Christianity in America that will be a great encouragement to believers. His work refutes much of the doomsday scenarios carelessly spouted out by Christian authors, pastors and speakers.

As an example, just the other day, a friend of mine tweeted:

Today, fewer than 20% of Americans attend church regularly and only 22% have a positive view of church. #Exponentialbook

This is a fantastic example. In reality, only about 40% of people have a negative opinion of evangelical Christians today. However, it all depends on how someone defines “evangelical” because that is the term used in most of the survey questions asked. For example, according to the 2008 Gallup Poll, less than 12% of the respondents had negative feelings toward Methodists, Jews, Baptists, or Catholics.

Wright points out that much of the research used to say that people have a faulty view of Christians is spurious and unreliable. In addition, Wright deals with topics ranging from the divorce rate in the church to whether the church losing its young people.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised as I was to learn that good interpretation of these studies reveals that the church in America is in much better shape than we’ve been led to believe. The conclusion of the Wright’s book urges us to think critically again and not to believe stats, polls and “research” – especially when our intuition tells us that this may not be accurate.

He points out that bad news sells. It sells newspapers, it boosts media ratings, and unfortunately, it also sells Christian books and helps advance speakers. Sensational statistics have been used to urge pastors and Christian leaders to buy books which advocate “solutions” when in actuality, the entire thesis seems to be one of promoting fear and worry.

Of particular concern to me were Wright’s findings about some organizations that many Christian organizations depend upon for research (and quote often) – the Barna Research Group and Lifeway Research being two. I’d encourage you to check out Wright’s blog and keep up with his material for another perspective.

In conclusion, I predict that 90% of people who read this entry will think twice about reading another statistic. Like I said, 90% of people who read this entry will think twice about reading another statistic.

I’ll confess. I judged the book because of its cover – or title, to be exact. I’ve used the expression Christian Atheist before, and after reviewing the table of contents in the store, I snatched it up for our worship leader and I to read together.

Craig Groeschel is pastor of LifeChurch.tv, which has put the “multisite church” on the map. They export church in the way some countries do bananas. They have vibrant ministries that are impacting thousands, and Craig is a regularly featured speaker at youngish Christian leader gatherings.

Craig’s definition of Christian atheism is when “people believe in God but live as if He doesn’t exist.” The rest of the book could simply be summarized by his chapter titles. Read them and you’ve got the gist of the book:

• A Recovering Christian Atheist
• When You Believe in God but Don’t Really Know Him
• When You Believe in God but Are Ashamed of Your Past
• When You Believe in God but Aren’t Sure He Loves You
• When You Believe in God but Not in Prayer
• When You Believe in God but Don’t Think He’s Fair
• When You Believe in God but Won’t Forgive

(get the point?)

• …but Don’t Think You Can Change
• but Still Worry All the Time
• but Pursue Happiness at Any Cost
• but Trust More in Money
• but Don’t Share Your Faith
• but Not in His Church

(and then a break from the formula…)

• Third Line Faith

The book’s message is essential. I just don’t know if Groeschel was up to the task. Some of the subjects he tackles in a single chapter are massive, daunting life questions that have challenged us for centuries.

Even with that being said, however, he has a winsome writing style, full of powerful, personal stories that woos you into the material in each chapter.

It’s definitely a great book for college students or those seeking to examine why they are struggling with intimacy with the Lord. It’s not a book that will convince a real atheist, obviously. It’s written to the Christian atheist.

The best chapter in the book is “…but Pursue Happiness at Any Cost.” He does an excellent job of unpacking how God doesn’t intend happiness for us.

If we believe that God wants us happy above all else, rather than acknowledging that our role is to serve God, we wrongly believe that God exists to serve us.

As in every chapter, however, Groeschel has a nasty habit – and this is my preference – of obscuring plain-spoken truth with personal anecdote. A sentence after making a profound observation, he will digress to a story that may be a real tear-jerker but doesn’t necessarily contribute to helping the reader deal with the truth. In fact, it may let us off the hook. You’re left thinking, “What an amazing story!” rather than “I’ve got to respond to this truth.”

I’d recommend it, but the title is the message. Deal with the power of the message and discover the joy of living with complete, reckless faith in a living God.

This book was a gift from my friend Amy. As an aside, if you’re a mommy blogger or willing to stalk mommy blogs looking for exceptional content, he blog Snoodlings should be your first stop. I rarely get more than 10 comments on any entry here – but she consistently has astounding interaction on her blog. It’s a real community. Notes from the Trail at times has about as much interaction as asking our 13 year old son how school went that day.

The back story. Why would I want to read Phil Vischer’s book about the collapse of the Veggie Tales kingdom?

I was watching Veggie Tales before we had kids. Everyone in college ministry in the 90s was. When Vischer points out in his book that it was college students that helped promote and bring VT (Hokie fans, don’t get excited) to almost cult-like popularity, I vividly remember those days. A couch in the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at the University of Arkansas at Monticello was an ideal setting to belt out “Oh Where Is My Hairbrush?” with a dozen students. It was a spiritual experience.

VT was/is innovative. It was funny. It was profound. Phil Vischer wasn’t a household name; Bob the Tomato was. And therein lay the problem behind the scenes. In this amazingly candid book, VT fans are given the story of Christian notoriety and the failure to resist seizing glory from God.

While Bob and Larry are entertaining and pointing kids, collegians and parents to simple, profound biblical truths, Vischer and the Big Idea staff are a whirlwind behind the scenes, hoping to blow away Disney in their pursuit to become a wholesome family entertainment company.

Vischer would have done well to consider Jeremiah Burrough’s words in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment:

Do not promise yourselves too much beforehand; do not reckon on too great things… Those who look at high things in the world meet with disappointments, and so they come to be discontented. Be as high as you will in spiritual meditations; God gives liberty there to any one of you to be as high as you will, above angels. But for your outward estate, God would not have you aim at high things. ‘Do you seek great things?’ said the Lord to Baruch, ‘Seek them not.’ (Jeremiah 45.5)

After reading Amy’s profound entries about the book, I left a comment or two, and she graciously sent me the book as a gift. <Thanks again, Amy!> You can read them here:

• My Name is Whimzie and… I Always Wanted to Be Famous
• More Important Than the Biggest Dream….*MGO
• Hello, My Name is Whimzie…..And I Want to Be Obedient

That was months ago. After reading it, it brought to mind another excellent book that reminds us that how we define success will define us. It was Kent Hughes’ Liberating Your Ministry from the Success Syndrome.

I put two and two together, and bought a copy of both books for our church staff. We read them over the spring and early summer together and then had a wonderful staff retreat in which we committed to not pursue success but to simply and humbly continue to pursue God’s glory.

Amy probably never knew how much her insights from the book would impact a church staff in Blacksburg, Virginia. Blogging is like that. You throw something out there, and as Forest Gump says, “You never know what you’re going to get.” God is able to make all grace abound to us if we are honest, transparent and earnestly seeking His glory rather than our own.

I’m grateful for Phil Vischer. For vision. For “big ideas.” I hope to have some someday. However, I’m more grateful for the constant check on my own aspirations to greatness. It’s not about me or my desires for fame. (Yes, Amy, I’m right there with you.) It’s about Him. His Name. His Fame. I’m Lame… without Him.

Here’s hoping this is another random blog entry that might be used to provoke humility and patience in someone else…

This is the third book of Malcolm Gladwell, and it’s three in a row for books of his that I’ve truly enjoyed. He has a unique way of unveiling the assumed and revealing the patterns and reasons we don’t realize are present.

In Outliers, Gladwell examines success stories. One of the most well known characters in the book is Bill Gates. The book is an easy read of complex subject matter. Gladwell is a master storyteller, and he weaves compelling narratives around empirical research to engage the reader. You’re drawn deep without realizing you’re enjoying sociology.

One paragraph toward the end of the book summarizes his findings succinctly:

Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don’t. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky – but all are critical to making them who they are.

Gladwell’s conclusions are remarkable, but they are not new. Throughout the book, I caught myself nodding as his meticulous research and narrative simply verified a much older assertion:

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. (Proverbs 19:21)

And…

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

I picked up Josh Harris’ latest with the eager expectation that I might be using it in personal discipleship with other guys. Harris is the pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD. This book was billed as a one that, well, “dug down deep.”

I anticipated that the book would take basic Christian teachings (doctrine) and helpfully unpack them for those eager to learn. It did do that, but the unpacking was definitely of an autobiographical nature. Perhaps I should have taken the subtitle seriously – “Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters.”

The first couple of chapters recall Harris as a Christian poster boy author of fame that tries to live down his I Kissed Dating Goodbye notoriety now that he’s a pastor. It seems that he really struggled with the Christian attention and fame that he received as a result of that book. It was interesting, but again, it was a segue from what I hoped to be able to use and receive from the book.

While there are some helpful chapters, it really never digs down deep. However, two chapters stood out as being worth reading:

1. Chapter 4: Ripping, Burning, Eating - This chapter does a great job exposes how we use the Bible (and how we ignore it when it doesn’t line up with how we prefer to live). In it, he expounds on how “doctrine” is NOT a bad, stale word. Rather, doctrine means truth, teaching, or standard, and without doctrine, we will quickly orient our lives around our own preferences.
2. The last chapter (11) on “Humble Orthodoxy” is one of the best in the book. It urges us to not seek “rightness” on an issue but to seek righteousness. Too many folks in the church would rather win an argument than a soul.

Harris is on the money (as far as my theological tribe is concerned) about how he explains the teachings of the church in this book. It’s very readable. However, you may want to check out other resources for a more thorough and deeper treatment if you’re really curious. In addition, if you’ve read Dug Down Deep and have a different opinion of the book’s impact or contribution, I’d love to hear it.

Imagine a world in 2088 where everyone has neural implants enabling them to enter VR (virtual reality) and access the Grid (internet on steroids) at any moment. Because of the implants, a human can process information much faster than ever before. In this same world, Christianity – as well as other religions – is almost extinct. The endless pursuit of information, entertainment and sensory stimulation has choked out the spiritual.

That’s the world you’ll encounter in David Gregory’s The Last Christian. I read it after receiving it for free as part of Waterbook Multnomah’s Blogging for Books program. I honestly didn’t have high expectations for it. So often Christian fiction fails to compare in quality and imagination to the mass market. I was pleasantly surprised with this book.

I was hooked from the first chapter, and over the last three days, I’ve devoured the book. It’s imaginative – truly. On top of that, there’s a powerful message about the importance of living a full faith.

The protagonist attempts to re-evangelize America, but her attempts sound stale, trite and canned – much like many attempts at evangelism today. The author calls us to reexamine the New Testament and recover a thoroughly biblical – and dynamically compelling – way of leading people to faith in Jesus Christ.

If you’re looking for a summer thriller, look no further! Buy it here!

This little book can destroy your way of life as an American. If you’ve embraced “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as yours by right, then you should continue to do so without the message of David Platt, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills, or you’ll be be forced to evaluate your citizenship.

In essence, Platt points out that the teachings of Jesus slay the American dream. The Christian does not have the right to selfish pursuit of self-satisfaction.

Platt’s actual writing style is curt and pointed, it may be that the message itself shapes the tone of the book. Platt takes American Christians to task for thoughtlessly ignoring the plain commands of the New Testament in relation to lifestyle, possessions and life purpose.

I see it as an uncomfortable followup to Francis Chan’s Crazy Love. Reading these two books back-to-back will most assuredly kick a comfortable Christian in their blessed assurance.

We have unnecessarily (and unbiblically) drawn a line of distinction, assigning the obligations of Christianity to a few while keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all. In this way we choose to send off other people to carry out the global purpose of Christianity while the rest of us sit back because because we’re “just not called to do that.”

Platt urges Christians to return to mission and embrace the purpose of God for their lives. It was not to accumulate and spend and ignore the needs of those around the world (or across the county).

He recounts the story of a friend who journeyed to a remote village in southeast Asia to share the love and truth of Jesus Christ. Upon entering the village in which not a single person had ever heard the name of “Jesus,” he was offered a Coca Cola by one of the tribesman. Platt comments,

A soft drink company in Atlanta has done a better job getting brown sugar water to those people than the church of Jesus Christ has done in getting the gospel to them.

Platt’s book is not unique. There have been identical voices over the past 100 years in American culture echoing the same message. Francis Schaeffer was one. Keith Green sang a similar message. Platt happens to be the latest young voice to this rising chorus. Perhaps a new generation will take the message seriously.

While I was challenged by the book, I think that it also needs the balanced corrective of God’s deep and majestic love for His people. Platt comes across many times as simply… angry. The book seems to need a great dose of the joy and love of God.

While the salvation of the nations is a mighty and preeminent goal of the church, we cannot allow ourselves to be motivated by guilt. This book comes across as heavy on that.

While guilt is an excellent motivator, it’s a poor sustainer. We must look our Father in the face, come to terms with the amazing grace that has made our own salvation possible, and then in humble gratitude and eager joy embrace God’s mission for us all in a way that magnifies Him and not the nations’ needs.

Platt calls for his readers to join him in a “radical experiment” over the course of a year. I’ll leave you to discover the five challenges of that experiment as you read the book. However, I can guarantee (as does Platt) that if you should accept the challenges, your life will never be the same, and you’ll discover the joy of waking up from your American snooze and experience the beauty of truly living.

This book was provided for review by the by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group. You can download a preview of Chapter 1: Someone Worth Losing Everything For here.

This small book makes for an easy read, but I encourage you at the outset to not plow through it just to say you’ve read another book. Rather, chew through it, and reflect, enjoy, and drink deeply of how Morgan spins a spiritual tapestry.

I had the privilege of getting to meet Bob Morgan last spring when he came to preach a revival at Rose Hill Freewill Baptist Church in Monticello, Arkansas. Our church regularly hosted an event designed to encourage ministers called NCourage.

The pastor at Rose Hill, David Ponder, graciously informed me of Morgan’s visit and offered to set him up to speak at NCourage that week. We partnered together to buy a case of books to give out: The Red Sea Rules.

A year later, I’ve just read it. Morgan tells the story of the Israelites deliverance from slavery in Egypt, and in doing so gives ten rules for handling hardship:

1. Realize that God means for you to be where you are.
2. Be more concerned for God’s glory than for your relief.
3. Acknowledge your enemy, but keep your eyes on the Lord.
4. Pray!
5. Stay calm and confident, and give God time to work.
6. When unsure, just take the next logical step by faith.
7. Envision God’s enveloping presence.
8. Trust God to deliver in His own unique way.
9. View your current crisis as a faith builder for the future.
10. Don’t forget to praise Him.

The way that Morgan unpacks each of these rules in such a short book is marvelous. As he consistently points to a God who made a way for His people through a sea, he urges us to trust this same God to make a way today through our impossible situations.

Don’t race through the book. Enjoy the journey.