Walking With God

When’s the last time you heard God’s voice? What if it was just a second ago and you missed it? Wouldn’t it be amazing to hear God speaking directly to you; to know His counsel and encouragement for today? In Walking with God, John Eldredge, author of the bestsellers Wild at Heart and Captivating, shows you what it’s like to have “conversational intimacy” with the Father. Through personal reflections from his own spiritual life, Eldredge helps you recognize the sound of God’s voice. You can experience a spiritual life more rich and exhilarating than you’ve ever known.

John Eldredge's newest release, Walking With God, (Thomas Nelson, 2008) is one of th emost extraordinary books I've ever read. For more, click here:

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=25a7575ebf6c3112dbfa

Epic: The Story God is Telling and the Role That is Yours to Play

Epic
The Story God is Telling and the Role That is Yours to Play
By John Eldredge
Thomas Nelson, 2004
ISBN: 0-7852-6531-7

Hollywood and Harlequin have too often hijacked words that used to mean something. Unfortunately, words like “romance”, “love story” and “epic” have become synonymous for tawdry, cheap and predictable. Not so with John Eldredge’s creative, clever and engaging little book of just over one hundred pages.

Epic unfolds as a four-act “play” with a Prologue and an Epilogue. Chapter titles – or Acts – include Eternal Love, The Entrance of Evil, The Battle for the Heart, and The Kingdom Restored. The Epilogue is The Road Before Us.

Shedding worn-out, pedantic rehashes, Epic is a “tell me the story” approach to the Story. The words may be different from what you’re used to - romance, betrayal, pursuit, Hero, Lover, rescue - but the Story’s the same: Creation, the Fall and original sin, struggle and schism, and God’s redemptive plan through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.

Drawing from a variety of literary and cinematic genres including Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last of the Mohicans, Titanic, Apollo 13 and Paradise Lost, as well as some great authors – Buechner, Milton, C.S. Lewis, Philip Yancey and G.K. Chesterton, to name a few – Eldredge retells the Greatest Story ever told in an eloquent, winsome manner that’s as flavorful and full-bodied as a premium Cabernet Sauvignon. Eldredge’s style is brisk, his tone genial. His paragraphs are conversational, well-seasoned with interrogatories, anecdotes and literary segues designed to explore, inspire, engage and explain.

In Act One, Eternal Love, Eldredge explains that the triune God is relational and personal from Genesis to Revelation, and longs for a relationship with his Creation, humanity. (Some of Eldredge’s themes in Epic regarding beauty, intimacy, and adventure are echoed in Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman’s Soul – 2005.)

In Act Two, The Entrance of Evil, Eldredge tell us about the schism brought about by evil, free will, and sin. He asks - among other things: “Dear God – the Holocaust, child prostitution, terrorist bombings, genocidal governments. What is it going to take for us to take evil seriously?” In this section Eldredge recounts the biblical narrative of the fall of Lucifer as a result of pride and betrayal (pp. 33-37). He explains through example and illustration and biblical text that we live in a world at war as a result.

At thirty-one pages, Act Three: The Battle for the Heart, is perhaps overlong and occasionally overwritten. Flowery metaphors and descriptions of waterfalls, birds, “tulips and pine trees” are rehearsed perhaps more than is necessary, but Eldredge makes his point in recounting the glory of Creation, with humanity its final crescendo:

“God creates us in his image, with powers like unto his own – the ability to reason, to create, to share intimacy, to know joy. He gives us laughter and wonder and imagination. And above all else, he endows us with that one quality for which he is most known.

He enables us to love.”

It’s quite a risk, because with this ability to love God also gave us free will, including the freedom to reject him. “Why?” asks Eldredge on page 51. “The answer is as simple and staggering as this” he writes, “if you want a world where love is real, you must allow each person the freedom to choose” With that freedom we chose to reach for “that one forbidden thing.”

“….. at that moment something in our hearts shifted. We reached, and in our reaching we fell from grace.” This freedom resulted in original sin.” Free will is “where our story takes its tragic turn” (p. 54) a la Genesis 3:1-6. Says Eldredge, “You must understand: the Evil One hates God, hates anything that reminds him of the glory of God… wherever it exists. Unable to overthrow the Mighty One, he turned his sights on those who bore his image.”

Evil has invaded the Epic.

“God gave us the wondrous world as our playground, and he told us to enjoy it fully and freely. Yet despite his extravagant generosity, we had to reach for the one forbidden thing. And at that moment something in our hearts shifted. We reached, and in our reaching we fell from grace.” (p. 56)

Sin enters the Story and “spreads like a computer virus.” But wait, writes Eldredge, “every great story has a rescue” (p. 61). Enter Act Four: The Kingdom Restored. Here we see hope resurrected. Paradise regained. Our future secured. Tragedy turned into Triumph. Lover and Beloved reunited.

“One day soon we will round a bend in the road, and our dreams will come true. We really will live happily ever after. The long years in exile will be swept away in the joyful tears of our arrival home. … All we long for, we shall have; all we long to be, we will be. All that has hurt us so deeply will be swept away.

And then real life begins.”

I can’t wait.

***
Author’s Addendum:
Epic won’t appeal to everyone, but neither does Shakespeare or Doonesbury. There’s a certain crowd that “doesn’t get” Eldredge books. Based on my wholly unscientific and purely subjective observations, these folks invariably fall into the camp of… unimaginative, jaded and … dull? They seem threatened by the use of words like “romance” or “lover” in conjunction with God and toss accusations of “poor theology” or an “inadequate view of God” at those who do like gravel off a hot rod’s spinning tires. They can’t (or won't) “think outside the box” or stained glass windows and seem intimidated by anyone who does – yet remains biblically sound. I wonder if the same critics who bash Eldredge’s books would eagerly wade into Narnia, Middle Earth or Neverland with hammer and scythe as well, flailing away at will?

My advice to these stiff-as-a-board stuffed shirts: Take a deep breath. It’s not that scary. Lighten up and listen up. You might learn something.

Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman's Soul

Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman’s Soul won’t speak to all readers. It won’t speak to readers who equate “biblical” with banal, myopic, strait-jacketed and rigid. It probably won’t resonate with supercilious pseudo-scholars unable or unwilling to grasp basic elements of good writing or storytelling, such as the use of the inverted pyramid style or personal anecdotes to illustrate or amplify salient points. It won’t speak to the One Size Fits All approach to “women’s ministries” that ostracizes, villifies and maligns those who dare “color outside the lines” or yearn for something deeper, richer, or closer to the heart of God. It probably won’t say much to defensive, sanctimonious Torquemadas who perceive anything “new” or “creative” as suspect and destined for the stake. (These mentalities perhaps unwittingly personify some of the Eldredge’s secondary themes.) In terms of criticism, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. This is mine. Candidly, I disagree with much of the fire that Captivating has drawn. Among the most ferocious, oddly enough, is Captivating’s use of personal anecdotes and movie themes or song lyrics. This criticism is easily deflected and deflated if one understands that Stasi Eldredge uses her own life experience as EXAMPLES to illustrate and expound upon the tri-fold theme of the book. I’ve read the book thru twice, as has my husband and several friends, all from different denominational backgrounds. We all see the same thing: no where does Stasi state or imply that her troubled past is “normative” for others. Thus, this criticsm is both unfounded and silly. It’s also a sterling example of how someone can read a book without “getting it.” Regarding the Eldredge use of movies, Captivating never elevates the message of any movies cited to the level of Holy Writ. The basic themes and titles, such as Nathaniel’s words to Cora in “The Last of the Mohicans” cited on p. 8, are clearly used as illustrations from a medium with which most readers are familiar and thereby most likely to connect. Another criticism levelled against this book concerns the Eldredge’s use of the Song of Songs (Solomon). Some have alleged that Captivating takes S of S “out of context,” insisting that it only and solely refers to Solomon and his Shulamite bride. In truth, the traditional rabbinical view of the Song is that it depicts God’s love for Israel, his wife. God’s courtship of Israel from the time she left Egypt is a theme running through the Bible. Christian commentators have long interpreted the Song of Songs as a picture of the Church as the Bride of Christ. God loves His only Son and by the Holy Spirit He has called out and prepared for Jesus a beautiful, virgin bride. Captivating is well within the pale of biblical orthodoxy in its use of Song of Songs. Those who maintain otherwise might profit from a refresher course in Poetic Literature 101. Again, let me reiterate that Captivating won’t speak to everyone. I accept that. What I don’t accept is the type of response that one woman shared when informing me that she “doesn’t agree with the book’s premise.” When I asked, “What is the book’s premise?” she couldn’t articulate a single point, and eventually admitted that she’d never made it past the first chapter! (So much for an informed opinion.) From this example and others, my point is this: I don’t think it’s fair that those who disagree with or misconstrue Captivating bash it on the basis of their inability or unwillingness to grasp basic journalism and literary technique or the subtitle: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman’s Soul. Read the book for yourself and draw your own conclusions. For those willing to honestly look for and listen to that still, small Voice with an open and contrite heart, you will surely find Him within the pages of Captivating.