Book Review...

I just finished reading Max Lucado’s “Come Thirsty.” I recommend it highly to anyone who might feel blue, tired, fearful, and doubtful, etc. etc. This book really helped me understand exactly who and what the Holy Spirit is. Growing up in Baptist churches, I never heard about the Holy Spirit until I moved to Oklahoma and my parents started us in the Pentecostal Church. Then I heard about the Holy Spirit all the time. It was stressed that we all be filled with the Holy Spirit. I opted out on this because I was made to think that being filled with the Holy Spirit meant I would have to clap uncontrollably to a song and speak in tongues. Later I realized those are just gifts of the Spirit and evidence of the Spirit, but that’s not solely what the Holy Spirit is.

The Holy Spirit is part of the trinity…the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I’m not a biblical scholar, so I’m not even about to begin to try to explain this. But basically, before Jesus ascended into Heaven, He promised us that the Holy Spirit would be here with us to comfort and guide us. When reading Lucado’s book…he asked some very personal questions. Are you depressed? Angry? Fearful? He explained that these are all symptoms of emotional dehydration and the cure for it is to let the Holy Spirit in to give you living water and hydrate all the dry, shriveled areas of your heart…And the way to receive the Spirit and be quenched with this water is to ASK.

I like to explain my thoughts using analogies, and Lucado is very much the same way. He uses basic analogies to help people understand the depth of God’s love. One of my favorite parts of the book was when he touched on how God is in control of everything. Even before Satan throws something your way…it has to be passed through God. (much like how Satan tested Job). So it makes you wonder…why does God let something bad happen? Well, Lucado explains this in a very simple way. God has a different definition of bad than we do. Just like parents and children have different definitions of bad…For example, a kid might come home from school saying, “I had a bad day, I had a pop quiz.” To the parent who just got laid off of work that day…a pop quiz doesn’t sound so bad. And why is financial stress, death of a loved one, illness, etc… not bad to God? Well, it’s like going to watch a movie that you’ve already seen or read the book to…when the rest of the audience gasps in terror…it doesn’t seem so bad to you because you already know it’s going to happen and what will happen next. I thought that was a fantastic analogy and a great way to remember that God is always in control and even though we feel things in our lives our difficult, we are limiting the power of God to make “all things work together for good for them that love him.”