Nine Ways God Always Speaks*: Review and FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY CONTEST!

Nine Ways God Always Speaks*
*Offer only available in certain states
Authors: Mark Herringshaw & Jennifer Schuchmann
Publisher: Tyndale

Before reading this book, I was skeptical. It's typically my nature to be on my guard when reading books about "hearing God". I've been a Christfollower for about 30 years and have been exposed to many different teachings about hearing from God. Much of it was what I call weird, spooky, or even downright ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong. I hear from God myself in many different ways. Recently the topic came up in my own circle of friends about how do we know when it's God and not just wishful thinking or coincidence? Is this going to be another 'religious' book giving me step-by-step instructions -- if I do this, God will do that or if I don't do this God won't do that?

My fears and doubts were relieved right away with the first chapter.

The book is an easy read in contemporary and relevant language. Yet don't confuse an 'easy read' as not being challenging and thought-provoking. It most definitely is.

My eyes were opened to seeing the ways that God spoke to people during biblical times. Mary's excitement over the message that the angel spoke to her made me excited! This story, which I've heard and read hundreds of times since the time I was a child became truly human and alive by the authors' timely telling and language. All she could do was babble about God's goodness, His promise, and her love for Him. But what about Joseph? Here's a guy who is going to marry a 'good girl' who not only tells him some crazy story about being God speaking to her but that she is going to have a baby while still remaining a virgin. Can you imagine how Joseph must have felt? The doubts, the skeptism? Wouldn't that be our reaction as well? Yeah, right, sure, he must have thought.

So how does he overcome these doubts? God speaks to him through an angel as well. Not only did he end up believing but he was obedient to God's command and didn't have sex with her until after the baby Jesus was born. Would any man, unless he was convinced that he heard from God, abstain from consumating his marriage with his new bride unless he was sure that it was God he heard from? Not only is this proof that Mary's story was true, it's proof that Joseph heard from God as well.

Rarely does God speak to us and ask such crazy things of us. But if He spoke to them and they were convinced it was God's voice, why is it so far-fetched to some of us that He still speaks to us today?

On page four the authors write,

"One reason people say they don't pray more is because they feel as if nothing happens when they pray, that God isn't listening, or worse, that He is not there at all.

A one-sided relationship isn't worth much.

If we're expected to talk to God through prayer, shouldn't we know whether He will talk back? And if He will, how will we hear Him?"

This book helps to answer those questions in practical, mysterious, logical, illogical, and meaningful ways. It asks as many, if not more, questions than it answers. This is a good thing as it encourages you to read and learn of the differnt ways that God speaks and recognize them when you encounter them. It doesn't tell you how God will speak to you, but that He does, and will if we are listening as it tells of many of the ways He does this. Only through listening and hearing other people's stories -- the ones that God told about in the Bible and the regular, every day people of today -- can we learn to be sensitive to God's voice, to discern what is Him and what is the noise of the world, what is real and what is, well, crazy.

In my own personal experience of hearing God so clearly that there was no denying it was Him -- dreams so vivid and full of knowledge and insights that I never would have know on my own (to one of my pastors at that!), to expected, to pictures that God gives me (I guess the common biblical term is visions), to visiting people in one area of South Africa where povety and AIDS is rampant, returning to the same area a year later to be greeted by joyful spirits and healthy bodies, seeing the lame walk a day after we prayed for them, teaching classes to South Africans in our native American language and having the interrepter come up to thank the teacher for speaking to them in the language of Zulu -- when she spoke English the entire time but they heard Zulu! The list of His amazing ways of revealing Himself and speaking to us and through us, through others, and through His word did not end after Jesus left this earth. It continues today and this book will encourage you, amaze you and make you hungry to hear more from our incredible God.

I want to listen. I want to know more. I want to hear God in all I do, think, act, and see.

Do you want to know, too? If so, this book can help you in your journey of learning to listen and hear God personally in your own life as well.

*** Want to learn more? Leave a comment stating your thoughts, or share a story of how God has spoken to you, maybe how you want to know if He is speaking to you, or anything that is on your mind about how God speaks today, or simply why you would like to have this book. There will be one randomly chosen winner. Open to residents of the US only. One entry per person please. Please be sure to include a way to contact you if you are the winner! Contest will end May 10, 2009. For more blog giveaways, click the button below to Mom Most Traveled. I look forward to your comments! ***

***AND THE WINNER IS ....
JUDITH!****

Thanks for all of your great thoughts and posts. A new copy of Nine Ways God Always Speaks* is on its way to Judith. Return soon for more reviews and giveaways. (And if you didn't win this book, I recommend you go out and buy a copy. You'll be happy you did.)