"Waking The Dead" by John Eldredge

Again, no pictures. Just me! I finished the book I was reading by John Eldredge called "Waking The Dead." I'd do a complete review on here, but I gave the book back to my friend and counselor, Shari. She's supposed to give me a new book today, that I'm being limited to one chapter a week on. (She figured out that I'm a "ravenous" reader!) This one is called "Relationships." Not sure who it's by. I'll tell you when I get my hands on it! She would have brought it to our session yesterday, but she forgot. She wasn't surprised that I had finished the Eldredge book! She knew I was getting through it fairly quickly! It's a great book, and really I think every Christian should read! It talks about a subject that I think most Christians know somewhere inside of them, but they often doubt, because it's never covered in church! It certainly isn't covered in my church. John Eldredge talks about the heart and he lets us know that in Christ are hearts are good! That might sound unbiblical to you, because we're told so much how our hearts are "desperately evil" and that the "desires of our hearts are only evil all the time." It does say that in the bible, but they're taking it out of context. It's when our hearts and minds are turned away from God that they're evil, and of course, before we know Christ. Hearing this from my pastor so much had made me even doubt my spiritual gifts or even my ability to recognize them or even know what I'm supposed to be doing right now. It made me doubt whether I should be writing or doing anything outside of just being a quiet, well-behaved wife and mother. I'm not even sure if that's possible for me! I've never been quiet or well-behaved by most people's standards! I think I'm occassionally well-behaved by God's standards, but definitely not people's standards! I'm sort of obnoxious. I hope I'm obnoxious for Christ and not against. I've been against Him at times and at those times I'm MISERABLE! I hate it, and quickly turn back in repentance. I think my pastor doubted my repentance to some extent. I don't mean to badmouth my pastor. He's a wonderful, godly man, and a great teacher with a good heart, just like the rest of us who are following Christ with our whole hearts! Do you notice how much I'm emphasizing the heart! It's very important! It's central to our faith! Many like myself have been tempted to shut down our hearts, and I fear that many have, because we feel we can't trust them even in Christ! That is the impression we get when we get told that even once we've received Christ that "the desires of our hearts are only evil all the time." But we can't love God without our hearts. We can't love people without our hearts, which are the two greatest commandments according to Jesus! He wouldn't ask us to do that if our hearts could not be cured in Him! The bible also says that He gives us a new heart. If you still don't believe me look up in your concordance all the times you see the word heart in the bible. I think you'll find that He says a whole lot of positive things about the heart! And....pick up a copy of John Eldredge's book, "Waking The Dead."