Another book review! This reading challenge thing is really working – I’ve read two whole books in as many weeks. If the only effect of the challenge is that I’m finally getting myself to read, it’s been well worth it.
That being said, I strongly recommend that you pick up a copy of Elisabeth Elliot’s Passion and Purity. Rarely have I read a love story so beautifully told. In this book, Elisabeth combines her journals from her college years, memories, biblical and straightforward advice, and an intimate relationship with the Lord.
One of the first things to strike me about her was her amazing knowledge of scripture, hymns, a wide variety of poetry and prose, and even Greek. If I want a verse on a certain topic, I just search for it online. She didn’t have that convenience in the 1940s and 50s, but she quotes scripture from all over the Bible, gleaning truths from passages where I would never think to look. I envy her intimacy with scripture. Couple that with how well-read she is in everything from Tennyson to Wilberforce, and Elisabeth Elliot at 20 would have put me to shame.
I appreciate how frank she is in detailing her struggles with being single, loving Jim, and with daily getting on her knees before the Lord to struggle after His will, not hers. She puts it much better than I could:
“The greater potential for good, the greater potential for evil. That is what Jim and I found in the force of the love we bore for each other. A good and perfect gift, these natural desires. But so much more the necessary that they be restrained, controlled, corrected, even crucified, that they might be reborn in power and purity for God.”Though I’m married, and no longer worried about finding a suitable husband, this story of Elisabeth’s struggle on the road from meeting Jim to marriage was so encouraging to me in my own relationship with the Lord. Like Paul tells Timothy to imitate him as he imitates Christ, I want to have the deep and passionate relationship with God that Elisabeth has had all these years. She’s such an amazing example of truly living day in and day out for God’s glory, and that passion for God is evident in every page of this book.
Enough of my gushing, just go out and read it already. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
Next Wednesday, I’ll be reviewing Humility: True Greatness by C.J. Mahaney. His books are usually short reads, packed full of simply-stated truths, I encourage you to read along with me!
This sounds like a great book. I don’t think I can ever read enough about greater intimacy with God or my husband. Thank for linking up with Circles of Faith!