Book Club...

I get a daily dose of a chapter from a new book from my book club. Sometimes I don't have time to so much as read the title of the book, other times I've read each day (same book runs for 5 days) of the book. This week, I just didn't have time... but something made me read. Someone, some voice in my head, said "read today, this one is for you." So anyway, I've been reading excerpts from the book "Reckless Faith," by Beth Guckenberger. By the end of day two I had pre-ordered the book from Amazon for when it is released in August.

I can't wait to get the book and read more. In one section she quoted a sign from George Bailey's office in "It's a Wonderful Life" that reads, "You can only take with you what you have given away." She goes on to write that, "A reckless faith is more concerned with the balance of what you've given than what you have left. Reckless faith always has one foot in eternity. It measures people by their actions and not their belongings. A reckless faith believes when there is no evidence and hurls itself at what is unseen but promised. A reckless faith isn't "refined" in the least. It does not make sense to the world, and yet, the world often seems fascinated by it.
"In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is, destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal."--JOHN 12:25 MSG"

She also writes about how we make our own plans, thinking that these are the plans that God wants us to fulfill, but in fulfilling them, we see what the true plan was. The little "things" that sprout up along the sidelines, the people we didn't intend to interact with, and the way that his true plan always reveals itself in our lives. She writes about how we are often so focused on "our plan" that we often miss, or almost miss, His plan. Hopefully we are lucky enough to have our eyes opened in time that we don't miss His plan. She writes: "Isn't it hard to let go of our plans? Sometimes I'm so sure of myself, so confident that whatever is hardest to pull off, whatever is splashier or pays the biggest returns, is always God's plan. Sometimes I think he looks at the little boy with the loaves instead of the grown man with the fancy plans. He looks at the woman with the perfume bottle rather than the spiritual leader hosting the lunch. He looks at the boy with the sling rather than the army."

And after five short readings, I'm hooked. I'm thirsty for more, because this is all "me." These are things that have meaning for my life, things that I see in myself and things that I thrive to see more of. Oh, and her and her husband run an orphanage in Mexico. The whole book is a collection of short stories of how God has helped her by using the people she thought she was there to help. I even cried once in the five short readings, when she described feeding 40 children at an orphanage....

So, while I can't say I've read the whole book, I will shortly once it is released and Amazon ships that baby out, I have read enough to say that I can't wait to read more.