Practical Theology For Women

So many girls I talk to feel stressed about their life. They don’t know how to think about hurt, loneliness, fears and pressure.  And the scariest of all is the overarching unsettling unknown called their future.  Something powerful I’ve learned in my own life is that amidst all that is unknown, God can be known.  And not just intellectual facts gathered about him, but in a deeply personal way. The living God knows me and cares for me.  This is when “theology” (the study of God) is no longer a boring concept but something I crave everyday in my life because knowing him is the difference.

There are some great theology books out there but they are often written off because they are old and use big words and seem like textbooks for pastors.  But this book, Practical Theology for Women is not like that at all.  I am confident that even though it is only 152 pages it does not compromise on the quality of content in studying who God is.  But at the same time, it is not so wordy and lofty that a high school girl could not get totally into it!

God is, and his existence alone puts the rest of life in perspective.

When I sat down to read this book for the first time I didn’t necessarily feel far away from God but I knew I needed to deepen my understanding of him.  But I had no idea how much this book was going to move me!  The author writes:

It is my deepest conviction that what God teaches about himself in his Word is of utmost importance to the issues of my personal daily life.

And that is exactly what this book is about.  In each chapter she describes and explains qualities of who God is, taking us through the Bible to see what God has told us about himself.  She then connects the dots from that big concept of our mighty God to the everyday situation you and I face and get frustrated about.  The way she does this compelled me personally to put off sin in my life that I realized in reading this book was a result of misunderstanding or forgetting who God really is.

The more I understand how God does things and why he does them, the more ready I am to live all out for him!  Some chapters in this book were so good; I seriously only read a paragraph a day because I had to chew on it.  I couldn’t just keep turning pages because some things she would point out really were important and I had not always treated them that way.  Things like:

•    How faith really works…”To say we have faith in him while living a life characterized by anxiety and worry is to deny him by our actions, if not our words.”

•    How God is sovereign, compassionate and wise and how those all still makes sense even when he must discipline us as his children.

•    How to think about our problems in light of who God is…Many Christians in today’s churches seem much more convinced of the reality of their problems than the reality of their God.

•    How intense it is that Jesus left heaven, took on a human body, to take the punishment for our sin and how there is no love that compares to the beauty of God redeeming us and making us his people ready to do great things for his glory!

•    How everything that God has for us to do, he is enabling us to actually do because of the Holy Spirit, our Helper, living in us—amazing!

•    How reading the Word and praying continually are not just spiritual disciplines that we should strive for because we know we should.  They are our connection to the God of the universe!

Please go to the Compass Bookstore this weekend and get yourself a copy of Practical Theology for Women and see for yourself how knowing God will make a huge difference in your everyday life!