Book Review: Oh God, Please Help me With my Doubt by Leighann McCoy

Help Me With My Doubt: Welcome to Oh God, Please Help Me with My Doubt. The book you’re holding in your hands will help you capture and subdue the voice of doubt, whose goal is to eat away at your faith until nothing is left but bitterness and disillusionment. In the first section of this book, you will learn to recognize God’s voice. You will develop the ability to hear Him when He responds to your prayers. Then you will learn what to do when God doesn’t respond, when you are faced with His silence. While wrestling with the silence of God, you will discover five keys you can use to delete doubt from your prayer life. Then you will visit with the Israelites as they camped on the out- skirts of the Promised Land and see what occurred when God’s people applied or did not apply these keys to their lives. Then before this book comes to an end you will examine several doubts one at a time. Together we will define, dissect, and then defeat each one. My prayer is that by the time you complete this book you will have experienced God’s removal of most, if not all, of the doubts that infect your prayers.

Unfortunately, this book was not helpful to me.  Every Christian wrestles with doubt at one time or another... or possibly all the time.  So, I was looking forward to this book giving me good insight into the problem.  It didn't happen.

The book's synopsis claims you will learn to recognize God's voice, to be able to hear Him when He responds to your prayers.  The author's theories and explanations did nothing to help in these areas.  She also seemed to lean a lot on quotes and ideas from other authors.

If you're looking for a book to help with your prayer life and your doubts, I'd have to recommend you try a different book.

Thanks to Netgalley and Worthy Publishing for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

 

I give this book 2 Bookworms. 

Book Review: You Were Born for This by Bruce Wilkinson

 

For hundreds of thousands of readers, Bruce Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez changed their approach to worshipful prayer. You Were Born for This asks believers to reevaluate their concept of divine miracles. He presents seven simple keys of service that will help average readers deliver God's supernatural gifts to people in need. A neatly wrapped parcel of good deeds.

 

Some people may be confused by this book if they don't read the synopsis, as the subtitle is, "Seven Keys to a Life of Predictable Miracles."  Most people will assume this means miracles in their own life.  That's not what this book is about.  It's about being a servant of God and letting Him use you to deliver miracles to other people.

I think the whole idea of the book is great.  Being open to God to help give others miracles is a wonderful thing for which to strive.  The author, Bruce Wilkinson breaks his idea down into seven steps to show the reader how they can do this.  It involves listening to and for God, and speaking to people who quite often do not really want to be spoken to.

One issue I had with this book is, the author seemed to repeat himself over and over.  Basically giving the same thoughts with maybe a few word changes.  Some repetition is fine, it helps get the ideas to stick in the reader's head, but I thought the redundancy was a little too much.

Still, the premise of the book is an honorable one.  Anyone committing to following the steps put forward are heros in my book!

*Disclaimer:  I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.  I was not required to write a positive review.

I give this book 3 Bookworms.

Paperback:  256 pages

Publisher:  Multnomah Books; Reprint edition (January 18, 2011)

ISBN-10:  1601421834

ISBN-13:  978-1601421838



Book Review: Can't You Talk Louder God? by Steve Schultz

How many times have you felt God is trying to speak to you and yet you feel like you're hearing nothing? Who hasn't asked, "God, can't you talk louder? I just want to know what to do!" The reality is that all of God's sheep, in every denomination, already hear God's voice—every day! Steve Shultz uncovers the many Scriptures "hidden in plain sight," as he likes to say. These clear, yet often forgotten passages contain easy answers to the questions you've asked, or wish you could ask, about hearing God's voice. Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. ... everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort. (1 Corinthians 14:1,3 NIV). Learn how you can tune in to what God has to say personally to you! You don't even have to believe in prophecy. It's not the term "prophecy" that's the problem, but how it's defined. The wisdom in this book speaks on a "vulnerable" level through the author's exciting and dramatic real-life stories.

Steve Schultz writes about many times he's heard God's voice and what has happened.  He teaches about ways that God can talk to the individual if we would just listen.  It has good points in it, but nothing I haven't read before.  I don't feel I truly learned anything.  

Also, the last chapter in the book was written by someone else and I feel it was completely inappropriate for a book about hearing God.  It had nothing to do with listening to God and the story was put forth as God's retribution against evil doers, and it's not up to us as humans to determine if something was God's actions or not. 

So, this book does have some good principles that might help some readers, but it's not really a book I can recommend.

I give this book 1 Bookworm.

Book Review: Call Me Crazy, But I'm Hearing God by Kim Clement

Perhaps the best kept secret is that God wants to speak to you! Author Kim Clement has been hearing and sharing God's word accurately for years. He has spoken the word of the Lord to individuals, churches, and nations around the world. Call Me Crazy, But I'm Hearing God is a personal conversation with one of the world's leading prophets who wants to expand God's Kingdom through revealing to you the "secrets" of hearing God's voice. Biblically based and scripturally sound, the truth about modern-day prophecy will change your life dramatically especially after reading the numerous fulfilled prophecies.

I bought this book because, as a Christian, I am always wanting to learn more and to be better.  Prayer and hearing God have always been issues I want to know more about.  I didn't really feel like I got that with this book.  I believe that Kim Clement is a Christian with a passion for God.  I believe that God speaks to him - I believe that God speaks to us all.  But to me, the book was centered around his own experiences and not very helpful to the regular everyday folks like me who want some concrete help in that area.  It's an interesting book to read to learn about the author, but no help for what it promises, hearing God's voice for yourself.

I give this book 2 Bookworms.

Paperback:  203 pages

Publisher:  Destiny Image (August 1, 2007)

ISBN-10:  0768424941

ISBN-13:  978-0768424942

Book Review: Praying for Your Future Husband Preparing Your Heart for His

From when we were small girls, most of us dream of “The One,” our future husband. We think about what it would be like to be a bride. We wonder who that special guy is and when we'll find him. The great news is that what you do now can make a difference in your life and the life of your future husband!

Authors and good friends Robin Jones Gunn (Christy Miller series) and Tricia Goyer (author and former teen mom) believe God answers women's prayers for husbands—even husbands they may not meet for years. They invite young women to pray boldly for their future mate … while also asking God to prepare their own hearts.

In Praying for Your Future Husband, Robin and Tricia share their two vastly different experiences, including the things they did right and the mistakes they made on the path to meeting and marrying their husbands. Each chapter includes helpful Bible verses, prayers, and practical application, along with true stories of women who prayed for a husband and how God answered in remarkable ways.

God has a beautiful romance prepared for you. Prayer is the key to unlocking the love story … with your future husband and with God, the lover of your soul.

Praying for Your Future Husband Preparing Your Heart for His by Robin Jones Gunn and Tricia Goyer is a book for young Christian women.  It's exactly what the title says, a sort of guidebook for praying for your future husband, yourself, and your future relationship.  The book has questions at the end of every  chapter for more in depth thinking on each subject.  Also, it has scriptures at the end relating to it all.

First off, I absolutely adore the cover.  Yes, I can be swayed by a book cover.  This one with the clouds and fields, I can just feel a warm spring breeze passing through!

The authors have a good subject here, I think.  It is important to pray for everything in life, and especially something as important as your future husband.  They take turns relating their own life experiences with men.  They are completely, even sometimes painfully, honest about the choices they made.

I liked the book, although I do wish they had written it for women of all ages.  Not being a  young woman anymore, some of the advice didn't quite mesh for me.  But there are things to learn from it about prayer and trusting God that are good for all ages!

*Disclaimer:  I  received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.  I was not required to submit a positive review.

 I give this book 4 Bookworms.

• Paperback:  224 pages
• Publisher:  Multnomah Books (May 3, 2011)
• ISBN-10:  1601423489

Book Review: Max on Life by Max Lucado

 

We have questions. Real, important, and challenging questions. Questions about sex, finances, and forgiveness. Unsettling questions regarding illness, suicide, and eternity. Don't we crave answers to these queries that tug on the deepest parts of our hearts?
Do angels really walk among us?
How should I discipline my kids?
Any advice for my struggling marriage?
Why do I worry so much?
How do I know what God's will for me really is?
In Max on Life, one of the most trusted pastors and authors of our time takes on life's most important questions.
Max Lucado has received thousands of questions and wrestled with plenty of his own. Here's hoping that his answers to the questions of others will help you find the answers to yours.

This book, Max on Life Answers and Inspiration for Today's Questions is a series of questions asked of him by his followers/fans.  He has broken the book up into seven subject areas:  hope, hurt, help, him/her, haves/have-nots, the hereafter, and home.  Basically, each page is a question with his answer following.

The way the book is structured, it's hard to just read through as a typical book.  But, I don't think that's what Max Lucado intended when he wrote it.  There's an index in the back of the book with subject topics and their page numbers so you can look up any particular area you may be having a problem with and go straight to the pages on which he has discussed them.

Max Lucado is a popular Christian Non-Fiction author and has written numerous books.  He is very knowledgeable of the bible.  He quotes the bible in the majority of his answers, showing support of his views on the subject asked.  However, there were answers where he just gave his opinion on the matter, and I would have preferred he had biblical quotes to support his views.  The people writing him with questions are asking for answers based on biblical principles, so I feel they should always be shown where in the bible they should look.  There were a few of his answers where I didn't feel the biblical quotes he referred to actually answered or pertained to the question asked.  Some questions I don't feel ever were truly answered.

Still, in all, Mr. Lucado tackled a large number of sensitive, hard-hitting questions with sound advice based on the bible.  This is a good book for those who are confused as to how to live a Christian life in today's world, and also for those who would like to know how to answer the questions their friends ask them about Christianity.

*Disclaimer:  This book was provided as a free advanced reading copy to me from the publisher through BookSneeze.  I was not required to write a positive review.

I give this 3 Bookworms.

 

Hardcover:  256 pages

Publisher:  Thomas Nelson (April 19, 2011)

ISBN-10:  9780848848121

ISBN-13:  978-0849948121