Dear friends, it’s less than two months until…….
You get the idea, and you might be getting gifts for lots of other people. However, I’d like to encourage you to get a gift for yourself in the run up to Christmas too. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my Christian life is to stop reading good Christian books. Whenever I make sure I do I always know my faith is growing and my walk with God deepening. So I’d love to recommend some titles and encourage you to grab one from the bookshop as and when you can.
Enjoying God by Tim Chester –A book written to enable us to enjoy God in all the circumstances of life: in pleasure, in hardship, in prayer, in failure, in pain and many more. The strap line is to: “experience the power and love of God in everyday life” and as the book provides chance to reflect and meditate on the wonderful God we have it also enables that experience to be tangible.
Invest Your Disappointments by Paul Mallard – This book takes us on a journey where we consider the various disappointments we have experienced in our lives from work to children to leaders to ourselves - even to being disappointed with God. It’s a book which allows us to be honest about how we’ve felt. But it doesn’t leave us there, it provides us with power to strengthen us in those disappointments and even to see them as opportunities for our own growth and for God to do something wonderful through them.
When People Are Big and God is Small by Ed Welch – writing as a pastoral councillor Ed offers gentle and biblical advice to help us when we experience the fear of other people. The book acknowledges that deep down fear of people can be a symptom of hearts which have forgotten the love and grandeur of God and raises questions to help us identify our fears and replace them with God.
Whatever you get for others this Christmas – get a little something for yourself too.
In Christ,
Paul