Under The Overpass

"Under the Overpass" by Mike Yankoski

I found out about this book from a friend and she let me borrow it.  She told me it was a good book but wouldn't be life changing.  I think it was a great book and it challenged me a lot.  It has some hard truths in it.  The author and a friend choose to become homeless for five months in five different cities.  The author, Mike, was convicted one day that he wasn't really living out his faith, that his life looked no different really than a non-believer.  He got this radical idea to put his faith to the test and see if he really believed what he said he did.  He decided to leave his world behind and live a life with the homeless.  It is a fascination story which will cause you, hopefully, to look at people on the streets differently.  The message of the book is a challenge, a challenge to be the hands of Jesus and get out of our comfortable lives.  "Be the Christian you say you are."  That was the title of the sermon that caused Mike to question the life that he was living.  That is a very good statment to evaluate your life and what you are doing with it.  That was on page 4 and I could have stopped reading there.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  "More forgotten, ruined, beautiful people than we ever imagined existed, and more reason to hope in their redemption."  "Psalm 34:18 says 'The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.'  I wondered if pretending you're not broken keeps God at a distance."  We are all broken and the sooner we admit and are honest with others about that the sooner God can step in and redeem.  "If we are the body of Christ-and Christ came not for the healthy but the sick-we need to be fully present in the places where people are most broken.  And it has to be more than just a financial presence.  That helps, of course.  But too often money is insulation-it conveniently keeps us from ever having to come face-to-face with a man or woman whose life is in tatters."  Being fullly present in the places where people are most broken is scary and hard but my bet is it will be the place where we feel fully alive and see more of God.  "Begging is hard.  It's something you expect hungry dogs to do, but not men and women made in God's image."  The people on the streets, God's image bearers, they are having to lower their standards just to eat.  Why do we pass them by?  Why do we pretend that we don't even see them?  It's because we don't see Christ in them, we forget that they were created by God.  We see dirt, and stench and bad choices but we don't see God because if we did our lives would look a whole lot different.  "What's worse?  To do dope or to not love your brother?  Why do we kick drug users out of the church while quietly overlooking those who are ignoring their own different but equally destructive sins?  Why do we reject the loving, self-sacrificing, giving, encourageing, Jesus-pursuing drug addict but recruit the clean, self-interested, gossiping, loveless churchgoer?"  "If we as believers choose to forget that everyone-even the shrunken soul lying in the doorway-is made in the image of God, can we say we know our Creator?  If we respond to others based on their outward appearance, haven't we entirely missed the point of the gospel?"  Jesus hung out with the sinners, outcasts, lepers and sick.  Who do we choose to hang out with?  "I do this becasue my faith tells me to.  The Bible clearly says, if you see someone hungry, feed them; if you see someone naked, clothe them.  Those words weren't written for us to make books and sermons about.  They're written so people don't go hungry and naked.  And they require action from all folllowers of Christ..."  "Whenever we close our eyes to the real needs of the real people of our world, we force them to survive via whatever options are available to them, dehumanizing though they may be."  Each of us has the ability to meet someone elses needs to give where we have so much.  "Again and again it seemed that the culture we had returned to knew how to enjoy God's material blessings, but had forgotten-or didn't care to know-how to use those blessing to help others in Jesus' name."  We are blessed not so we can keep the blessings to ourselves but so we can share.  "Sometimes it's easy to walk by because we know we can't change someone's whole life in a single afternoon.  But what we fail to realize is that simple kindness can go a long way toward encouraging someone who is stuck in a desolate place."  We don't have to change someones life, that is Gods business, we just have to do the one things that He called us to do.  I hope you read this book, not just read it but do something, make a change, be willing to risk your comfort for Jesus.  

Divinie

"Divine" by Karen Kingsbury

If you have been a follower of this blog you know that a favorite of mine is Karen Kingsbury.  Once again, she doesn't dissapoint.  This book is about a modern day Mary Magdalene.  A woman who was saved from demons by Jesus and became a part of His ministry.  A woman who witnessed the cross and was the first to see the risen Jesus.  This is a story of Mary who is lost to her sin and abuse.  A woman who needs rescuing, as we all do.  A woman who is rescued and in turn, with Christ's power, rescues others just like her.  "Women who practice abstinence are healthy women in every sense of the word.  The same is true for young men.  When they make a choice to wait, they tell the world they are worthwhile, valuable, special.  Every other action they take toward their future will fall in line with those feelings."  When we feel worth something or valuable we are less likely to cave to outside pressure, we are more likely to stand up for what we believe.  "I almost believed the lie that killing myself was the only way to find freedom.  But it isn't.  You do that, and the nightmare will continue as long as your daughers live.  Every day of their lives they'll wonder why their mama didn't love them enough to live."  I understand the desperation behind suicide, it's a hopelessness and a pain so deep you just want it to stop.  But the pain is passed on to those who are left behind.  And God offers the hope, the rescue you are looking for.  He has a plan for each one of us, even in the midst of the pain.  "Because people can't be judged by their clothes or their hair or their skin.  But only by the way they love Jesus."  Thats all that really matters, how we love Jesus.  "The horrors that come with abuse are not always expainable.  It's bondage."  Bondage that only Christ can set a person free from.  "Abuse is never fair.  It leaves its mark on everyone involved."  An indelible mark that once again only Jesus can erase.  He wants to make us new creations, not just give healing, but new creations.  "When people give their lives to Christ, He gives them His Spirit.  It breathes from the center of the soul, giving life to the heart and shining bright through the eyes of believers."  "That serving Him is all the life, all the love I could ever want, all by itself."  Now that is something to strive for.  "Telling her story was draining.  It took her back to unspeakable darkness and horror, back to the doubts and uncertainties and loneliness that had driven her into a life that should've killed her.  But she would tell it over and over again until she died, for the privilege of having a woman like Emma ask her about Jesus."  That is what makes all the pain, hurt and sorrow worth it, being able to use your story for redemption.  That is exactly how Christ turns beauty for ashes, how none of the trials or horrors that we go through are in vain.  "Jesus died to take all the pain from yesterday, to offer people a new life, a new start today.  A start that would build one tomorrow on top of another until change in that life became obvious to everyone.  It was true.  The power of Christ wasn't a one-time fix.  It would keep working in her life today and tomorrow and every day that she woke up believing the truth."  God doesn't stop working in us, as long as we hold on to His truths He continues to make us new.  This is a great story of love and redemption.  It is a story about abuse that is sometimes hard to read but most of all it is a story of God's great love for each of us.

The Glass Castle

"The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

This book will astound and amaze you.  It is a memoir about the authors childhood.  She had a drunk father and a mother who didn't want the responsibility of raising children.  They were always moving from place to place, as her father could never hold down a job.  He was not an abusive or mean drunk but he could never provide consistently for his family.  The children learned to fend for themselves, often went hungry and helped each other.  The circumstances that were endured were crazy but this family still stuck together.  The oldest sister ended up in New York and soon the other three followed.  The children were able to build their lives.  Their parents eventually followed them there and even though their children tried to help they preferred to be homeless.  This is a very eccentric family and very resourceful.  The children were determined to get out of the situation they grew up in and make better lives for themselves.  They didn't let where they came from stop them from their future.  This truly is an astounding book.  A very good read.