As the sand trickles out of the hourglass of my life, I look at my shelfs with new thoughts. “These volumes have blessed and challenged me, how could I bless other with them now?”
For a lot of different people, the answer to that question, has resulted in unexpected gifts to friends, neighbors and colleagues. Other books I have listed on Amazon for sale. For others, I have written brief reviews. Still others have been quoted in conversations or referred to in articles I have written or manuscripts that I am working on. And that’s where the quote below comes from. May God grant you a day of surrender to His will, for His glory and your joy.
“After a storybook romance, Jim swept Sandy into what all observers believed would be the idyllic kind of life found in an especially good novel.
Jim dedicated himself to the task of conquering the corporate world, an endeavor which consumed long hours–his best hours. Sandy devoted herself to the strenuous task of raising the two perfectly beautiful children which they promptly brought into the world.
One morning, while Jim was dressing for an early morning meeting, Sandy calmly told him, ‘Jim, I don’t love you anymore. I filed for a divorce yesterday.’
In my office, a broken-hearted Jim sighed heavily as he explained how they both had been doing their ‘own thing’ ever since the first day back from their honeymoon.
‘Does Sandy have a Christian life view?’ I asked. A long pause followed.
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Jim cautiously responded.
‘I know that Sandy is a Christian, Jim. But what I’m asking is different. Does Sandy have a distinctly Christian way of looking at things? In other words, when she has a problem to solve, a plan to develop, a priority to set, or a decision to make, does she think about these things Christianly–does she have a Christian view of life?’
After another protracted pause, Jim slowly responded, ‘Well, no, now that you put it that way, I would have to say no, I don’t think she does.'”
Patrick M. Morley in
I Surrender: Submitting to Christ in the Details of Life
So begins the introduction to Patrick Morley’s helpful book on what it means to live passionately for and like Christ–a surrendered life to the Lord of life. This was a book written for men but anyone who reads it will find value in its 75 short chapters. Each chapter is roughly 3 pages long and each one relentlessly helps the reader toward an answer to the wise question Patrick asked his friend Jim about Sandy’s faith. In truth, Patrick could have asked Jim the same question and gotten the same answer. The churches of America are filled with professing believers in Christ who don’t know how to “think (and therefore, act) Christianly.” Maybe you are one of them.
The devotional book is older, published in 1990, but it still packs a wallop for anyone who is looking to transform their life over a seventy-five day period, reading one chapter a day. It may be at your Public Library. It is definitely available at Amazon (I checked-here’s the link). Change your life.
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