News Archive
Open book: Christine Jensen
Posted on 2 May 2006
What book are you reading at the moment? A Hunger for God by John Piper. We feed ourselves with a lot
of stuff that actually means not a great deal in the light of what's
really real. Food, the net, TV, projects, work, relationships, and so
much more. Often we have no appetite for God because we've stuffed
ourselves full of things that don't eternally satisfy. The focus of
John Piper's book is to lift our eyes to God and feed on him. It deals
with the spiritual discipline of fasting as a means of both
creating a hunger for God and demonstrating a hunger for him. ''This
much, oh God, I want you''. A challenging read so far.
What are the books that have had the biggest impact on you? No Compromise by Melody Green, and Shadow of the Almighty by
Elisabeth Elliot. Two biographies of men who gave all they had to
honour God and tell people about him. Both very different men, both
serving God in very different ways, both books written by their wives.
I read these books following a summer in South Africa. I had just met
people who's own families had tried to kill them as a result of their
faith in Jesus. It really shook up my complacent, comfortable, Sunday-morning Christianity. It was a summer
of figuring out if I really did actually believe Jim Elliot when he
wrote "he is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he
cannot lose".
What are you planning to read next? Intercessory Prayer by Dutch Sheets. I've read it already, but I
want a second helping! There were so many huge thoughts which I'd
like to revisit. It's a book dealing with what prayer is all about, how
God uses the prayers of his people, and the fact that God has given us
the privilege and responsibility to ''stand in the gap''. The first
time I read it, God really used it to enable a very large penny to drop
in my life. I just didn't 'get' prayer, I believed God was God and he'd
do as he pleased, so what was the point of telling him my thoughts. Now
I know that prayer is a whole different world away from that, but I'd
like those truths embedded a little more deeply.