Deus Misereatur

  Here I am, 62 years old (but still 16 inside, mind you), and I find myself thinking about retirement regularly. I've already retired once, after a 20 year career in the U.S. Air Force. But then I was 38, still flexible, with loads of years looming ahead of me (all things considered). And so, my attention was caught by Kenneth Boa, author, speaker, and president of Reflections Ministries, Omnibus Media Ministries, and Trinity House Publishers, and Jenny Abel, editor and writer. They teamed up to put together a new 256-page paperback, "Recalibrate Your Life: Navigating Transitions with Purpose and Hope". And it was that title the caught my attention. It's not a book about retirement, but life transitions. Those times of change and transition in life, and our response to them, all of which have a dramatic impact on the course of our journey and how we progress through life (3). This is a volume meant for anyone at any transitional moment in life. Score 1 for the author...

  McGrath, scientist and theologian, cleric and writer, put forth this wee volume in 2000. It is a 160-page softback mapping out the Christian trek as a journey. Following a long Christian tradition, he uses the Exodus-wilderness wonderings-promised land story as the structural map for his approach. But he adds his own twist, the hitchhiker, where the reader occasionally piggybacks onto other wayfarers such as John R. W. Stott, J. I. Packer, John Bunyan, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards and others. McGrath addresses many important subjects that arise on this journey of faith. He describes the place of doubt, looks into exile and failure, and speaks on fear and fellowship, to name a few. The author also drops in delightfully helpful suggestions and insights. For example, the role of emotions in our journey, as well as a way of reading sacred Scripture. His easy style makes the book feel like a friend has saddled up next to you to converse on a park bench, and is chatting about the bu...

A Sometimes Stumbling Life: Making Sense of Our Struggles and God's Grace in the Journey of Faith by Mike Khandjian My rating: 5 of 5 stars Eugene Peterson pictured the Christian life using a phrase from Nietzsche, "The Long Obedience in the Same Direction," which gets a good handle on an important aspect of being a disciple of Jesus. Mike Khandjian, Senior Pastor of Chapelgate Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Baltimore, Maryland, does something similar with the title of his new 212 page paperback, "A Sometimes Stumbling Life: Making Sense of Our Struggles and God's Grace in the Journey of Faith". The title gives out the main thrust of book. The eleven chapters are packed with stories from Sacred Scripture and real life. They follow a flow from the first steps to the final sojourn, examining and illustrating the often forward stumble of Christians. Each chapter takes up and wobbles it's way through fears, fixations or failures and arrives at a hope-filled...