FROM AMAZON: Jesus Calling is your yearlong guide to living a more peaceful life.

By spending time in the presence of the Savior with the much-loved devotions in Jesus Calling, you will: Feel comforted by words of hope and encouragement; Be reassured of Jesus' unending love for you; Receive gentle guidance based on Scripture; Strengthen your faith with Scripture verses; Connect with Jesus further with reflection and meditation based on Godā€™s Word
With 365 devotions, this padded hardcover edition is a favorite for its small size

Excellent for every day of the year, inspirational and good for the mind a great gift from my sister in law, Libby, as both of us have gone through losing a parent and gone through tough times with close friends .Not a book club book ( )

Uniquely inspired treasures from heaven for every day of the year by missionary Sarah Young.

This is the second 2 star review i've written in years and years and it happened just 1 week after my previous 2 star review. I very rarely rate any book 2 stars (or 1 star) because my normal practice is to abandon a book as soon as i consider it to be a 1 or 2 star book, and i don't review any books which i don't finish.

I did finish this book even though i knew it was a problematic book, because it is significantly different than anything i had ever read. The reason it is problematic is the same reason that it is very different. The author, who is a missionary, believes that an essential element of praying is to listen so that God can communicate back to us. This belief that prayer is two way communication, and not just the presentation of requests to God, has been practiced by believers for thousands of years and is clearly demonstrated throughout both the Old and New Testaments. I agree with this practice and it is a part of my prayer life. Here is what makes the book problematic: the author has taken the things God has communicated to her in her prayer time and that she has recorded in her prayer journal, and made those communications the essence of this book, and does it in the first person as if Jesus is speaking directly to not just her, but to everyone. This moves God's communication from the personal realm into a public realm which actually seems very much like the author is writing a book of scripture for public use. I have a problem with this. If the book had been written in the third person and just expressed the idea that these are things God had communicated to her personally, i would give this a book a higher rating.

The book has one more problem, though this problem is not at all unique to this book, but is common in far too many (in fact, in most) Christian non-fiction books. After giving us a "word from Jesus" the author then lists several Bible references. Not the actual verses themselves, but rather the location of verses. i.e. Rom 12:1, I Cor 13:5 etc. I consider this to be the very worst aspect of most Christian non-fiction books. I feel that if a passage of scripture actually adds to the points being made, then the actual scripture should be quoted, not just alluded to by reference. It's bad writing as well as bad theology. The scriptures as originally written, were NOT divided into chapters and verses. The scriptures were written as books (with the exception of Psalms which actually were individual Psalms as written and then were collected into the book). The divisions into chapters and verses were done by men long after the books of the Bible were actually written. The purpose was to make it easier to find specific passages. However, the result of these divisions into chapters and verses is often to destroy the context and flow, and by extension, the thought being expressed in the passage by removing it from its context. The use by authors of just tacking on a list of references instead of quoting a passage further exacerbates the problem by further decontextualizing the passage because it makes the actual text unimportant to the book by not quoting the text. ( )

Uniquely inspired treasures from heaven for every day of the year by missionary Sarah Young.
Others were blessed as she shared her writings, until people all over the world were using her messages. They are written from Jesus' point of view, thus the title Jesus Calling. It is Sarah's fervent prayer that our Savior may bless readers with His presence and His peace in ever deeper measure.