My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Sunday, May 8, 2022

Review: Seeking God: Finding Another Kind of Life with St. Ignatius and Dallas Willard

Seeking God: Finding Another Kind of Life with St. Ignatius and Dallas Willard Seeking God: Finding Another Kind of Life with St. Ignatius and Dallas Willard by Trevor Hudson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A practical guide to finding and living the [zoe] life that God wants for us. What we find within are the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) as they are applied by Trevor Hudson (a protestant minister) who learned them from Fr Andrew Norton (an Anglican Monk) and mapped them to every day living with the help of American philosopher Dallas Willard. Truly a fascinating mix.

The book opens with an introduction to the two “Seekers” (Ignatius and Willard) that will illustrate what we should seek and how to seek it. Each chapter ends with an example prayer and notations. For chapters with practical applications details for the reader, there is also specific “Seeking Exercises” to put the concept into practice and to develop the appropriate habits. In my opinion, it was these exercises that made this work exceptional.

For the most part, I doubt any believer who has answered the call to discipleship will find much that is new in the basic admonition to repent (although there is a brief examination of the term linking the concept to a change in direction in chapter 3), how to properly align/order our deepest desires (Chapters 4 and 6) and how to be “God’s compassionate image bearer” within a fallen world (chapters 7 and 8); however, the author’s analysis and use of personal experience resonated with me more than many of the many inspirational and devotional works that I have encountered in the recent past. In addition, chapter 5 presented a new way (for me) of looking at “The Gospel Way of Discipleship” divided into three elements: “The Way of Information”, “The Way of Inspiration” and “The Way of Interaction.”

Chapter 1:  Becoming a Seeker
Chapter 2:  Seeking the Life God Gives
Chapter 3:  Changing Direction
Chapter 4:  Discerning Our Deepest Desires
Chapter 5:  Exploring Life’s Greatest Opportunity
Chapter 6:  Dying to Live
Chapter 7:  Experiencing Resurrection Joy
Chapter 8:  Finding God in All Things

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#SeeingGod #NetGalley

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.