Walking with God

I am about half way through reading "Walking with God," by John Eldredge.  He is one of my favorite authors.  Only another tightly-wound type-A person is able to really get into my head and share deep new thoughts, like he does.  This book is great!  I picked it up thinking it would give me more insights on what steps I can take to get closer to God.  But it is so much better than that.

Eldredge really gets people like me.  He, too, would like a step-by-step manual on how to "do" Christianity.  But this book, like all of his others, is about "being" not "doing".  He, too, struggles with just remaining in the presence of God, and connecting at the heart level.

This book is about his struggle to listen to God.  Wow!  I struggle with that, too.  I spend a lot of time talking to Him, but listening is really HARD!  I love the way this book shows and describes how this plays out in real life.  As everyone that follows this blog knows, I have been struggling with prayer for years.  I am voraciously reading and studying everything I can find about prayer, but have still come up so empty.  I think what I am learning now, about listening, is at least part of the key to my struggles.

Not only does this book open up a whole new world in the area of prayer, it also delves deeper into spiritual warfare.  He explains a lot about agreements that we make with the enemy and how that plays out in our lives.  I can identify with many of his examples.  I have realized that when the voice in my head reminds me in a given situation: "This is just like the last time.  Won't you ever learn?  You need to protect yourself.  You can't open up to people.  You need to keep things inside.  You are really on your own in this world," etc., I am really making an agreement with the devil and allowing him to control me.  I need to recognize it and not make the agreements and allow Satan a stronghold in my heart.

He also mentions something that totally intrigued me:  He thinks that when someone is struggling with an issue, such as doubt, that this is part of spiritual warfare.  And the same spirit that is pushing the person into this struggle can catch on to us when we try to help that person fight it off, causing us to struggle with it, too, unless we are aware of it.  I don't know if I agree, but it is an interesting concept that I think I will ponder for a while.

Very interesting book.  Can't wait to finish.