A Review of Smack-Dab in the Middle of God's Love - A children's book

Smack-Dab in the Middle of God's Love by Brennan Manning & John Blase. Illustrated by Nicole Tadgell
Please note that I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com; http://BookSneeze®.com; book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

I love everything Brennan Manning writes. So, when the opportunity to read and review this book for children came along I thought "great!  I get to combine two loves: reaching out to kids with God's love and reading another book by Brennan Manning."

While it is a sweet book, I'm not sure who the appropriate audience is. The illustrations would be great for young children but there is too much text on each page for their attention span. Older children would appreciate the storyline but would want more detail. 

A review of Unleashed by Erwin Raphael McManus

Erwin McManus has long been known as a passionate, creative and unrestrained follower of Christ.   Unleashed is dedicated to challenging us to do the same.  Erwin's greatest strength, as an author, is his ability to draw you into the story and he does this well in this short book.

When I first signed up to review this book I assumed it was a new work; upon receiving it realized that it is a re-release of The Barbarian Way. The cover art has been changed and seems intended to appeal to women. That said, I think that if you were unlikely to resonate with the original work it is also highly unlikely that you will find this any more motivating.

This work is filled with stories of his family and personal ministry experiences. Initially I found myself appreciating everything he had to say but eventually it all started to sound the same. His challenge is to just take a risk, nearly any risk will do.

I agree that the way of a Christ-follower is not intended to be insulated and safe, in scripture we see times when God definitely calls people to do the "unsafe" thing: John the Baptist is used as the example of this. There are also times when God promises to keep us safe...to uphold us with His mighty right hand, to care for us as the Shepherd cares for his sheep.

In the end, the challenge seems to be to trust God completely and to be willing to follow even when it doesn't seem safe or make sense.  A great challenge for every follower of the barbarian way. 

Please note that I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.