About book Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach To Finding God's Will (2009)
This is probably the best book about knowing God's will that I have read to date. It is not nearly as comprehensive as Garry Friessen's "Decision Making and the Will of God," but I think that is a good thing as Friessen's book tended to be very repetitive, seemed to get bogged down in minutia at times, and was much longer than it needed to be. Sometimes less is more and I think that is the case with this book. God’s moral will is revealed in His word. God’s word is also filled with a lot of wisdom. God expects us to pray, study His word and make wise, moral decisions. How long does it take to say that? Kevin DeYoung got it done in 145 pages v. more than 500 for my previous go to book on this topic. To be fair, Friessen’s book had some good case studies and more rigorous scriptural argumentation. Those things are important and I am glad someone has done them. That being said, I think this book is a much easier and more enjoyable read. I highly recommend it. This is a book both pithy and powerful. And it might annoy you once or twice. It will annoy you because Kevin DeYoung is calling us away from super-spiritualized self-flagellating agonies about discerning the will of God, and back to a "sanctified common sense" approach.Basically, read your Bible, listen to wise people, pray for holiness, and then make a choice. Yeah. You heard him. We don't need to worry about discerning the will of God, or keeping ourselves within it... not in the confusing sense we think of it today. Do what He commands here in the present, give Him the past, and let Him lead you into the future. This is the essence of that phrase "Trust God and Do Good." Any good counts, whether in police work or pastorship. So for example, Don't fret over which college to go to. Instead, look at some statistics, check out the campus environment, ask people who love you what they think, and apply.Don't spend years waiting for the exact right future mate to be dropped into your path, start a conversation with the kind and Jesus-focused person who sits to your left. Don't put yourself into the hospital with a nervous breakdown over staying in Tuscon or moving to Laredo.Now that all makes sense. But what is scary about this idea, to most of us, is that it seems so impersonal. If I have a sick child, I don't just want to choose a good hospital, I want God to lead me to the right hospital! If I have to deal with a relationship problem, I don't want to just hear wise human counsel, I want God's intimate involvement in my mess! And so the question is: If I believe that I don't need to wait for God to direct me through specific signs every time I must choose something, am I saying that He doesn't speak to me and guide me? That I should never wait on the Lord? NO! Perish the thought! We worship a God who is alive and active, who spoke and speaks still through His Spirit in the Scriptures and in our hearts. We do need to tune in to His voice, and to recognize that His voice is truth and wisdom. I'm giving this book five stars because Just Do Something is a great book to mentally argue with at times, and then agree with at times. And it makes you think about how God and how He speaks to you. Do you hear His voice as you act and worship and obey, or do you wait to hear from Him and then engage the world? Should we be more like our grandparents, who loved God and worked hard and looked back and saw their legacy? Or should we keep spinning in circles, not moving forward into any productive and Kingdom-minded commitment, for fear that it is outside God's will for us?Good questions, great conversations. Just Do Something. Thank you Moody for my review copy.
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Fantastic. A must-read for a Christian who wonders about the will of God.
—Geo
