And the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers

I haven't read a book by Francine Rivers that didn't give me something new to think about and this book is no different.

This book explores several topics - listening to God's call to us through his Word and the Holy Spirit primarily. The book is about a minister who has plans to "build" a church that everyone will be proud of. As "his" church grows, it gets farther and farther away from God's message. Everyone in his life that tries to help the minister get back on the right path is ignored. This is a great book to make you think about having the right priorities in life and taking time to really consider what God wants for your life.

I will be the first to admit that I don't always give enough time or credit to listening to what God wants for my life. A friend of mine has a 3 day rule and she gives herself 3 days to pray about something before she makes a decision. This is one of the ways that she allows the Holy Spirit to prompt her to make decisions that God is leading for her to make. I am an impulsive person a lot of times...an idea comes to me and then I feel that right at that moment I have to research it, tell everyone about it, plan it out, and put it into action. Thankfully, God still finds a way to get through to me usually and prompt me, but in reading this book I've realized that maybe I should be a little less impulsive and a little more drawn to prayer and scripture and waiting. Don't get me wrong, I think that my personality is good in situations because I get really excited about things that I want to do and I'm sure that gets other people motivated, but still I need to give time for the Holy Spirit and God's word to lead me to make the decisions that are best.

On that note, I must admit that I am shamefully behind in my daily Bible reading. At least the books that I read are primarily spiritually-oriented so that I still can use my "noggin" and think about what God wants, but that is NO substitute for God's Word. I am not going to try to "catch up" and finish my Bible by the end of the year...I probably wouldn't take time to understand what I am reading if I did that. But, I am going to make a conscious effort to start where I left off and finish reading through the entire Bible..even it it takes me all the way through 2009.