Book review: Renee Fisher- Not another dating book

Not Another Dating Book: A Devotional Guide to All Your Relationships
Renee Fisher
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In Not Another Dating Book, Renee Fisher guides young adults through biblical perspectives on various topics related to romantic relationships.

As far as content goes, the book was essentially solid. It didn’t say anything particularly new or revolutionary that hasn’t been said in other books but provided a lot of pretty good advice. The author has a good grasp on the challenges and joys related to relationships faced by her target audience (Christian young adults). Her writing style seems to be a good fit for many in this demographic and she makes engaging use of stories from her own life.

I felt the book was let down by its format. Addressing the topic of dating in a devotional book format was an interesting idea, but in this case I don’t think it worked so well. Some ideas could have used a bit more expansion than the devotional format allows. The entries sometimes also felt a bit disjointed. Clearer organisation of devotionals into topics or better linking of devotional content to what has been said in previous days entries probably would have been helpful. I was also a bit puzzled by the inclusion of many of the quotes at the end of daily entries and the whole chapters made up of them. Some were interesting or encouraging but many seemed out of place and did not add much to the book.

Overall, it is by no means a bad book. The advice is pretty sound and I think many will find it helpful. However, I am somewhat confused by what made it “not another dating book” as apart from a different and arguably less ideal format it didn’t really stand-out from other material I have read on the topic.


Review copy courtesy of Harvest House Publishers and NetGalley

Why be holy? (part 1)

Lately I’ve been asking myself, “why be holy?”. No, I’m not asking because I’m pondering doing something unholy! I’ve been pondering this as I consider what it is that motivates some people to push on with resisting temptation and growing in holiness and what motivations are simply not enough when it matters. What is it that I need to focus on to stay hanging in there?

There is a common argument that we should be holy because things work out best if you live God’s way. Certainly there is some truth to this, as the book of Proverbs makes clear. God does know what he is talking about and doing things his way can help us avoid a lot of nasty pitfalls. However, a pragmatic approach of “being holy makes things work out better on average” very easily twists into “being holy makes your life turn out how you want.” Thinking holiness will get us our wish-list is an easy trap to fall into. It is an especially easy to end up using the holiness will get you what you want idea when trying to motivate others because it is so straight-forward. What could be more simple than convince people of than do “A” and you’ll get “B”?.

The problem is, if we are holy primarily because we think it will make our lives work out well and give us what we want, there is a good chance we won’t last the distance. We will run up against situations in life where things just don’t seem to work. The things we thought God was going to give us sometimes simply don’t eventuate on our timetable or never arrive at all. To make it worse, there will almost always be someone (or even lots of people) we can point to who we don’t believe are being as holy as we think we are who are getting exactly what we want. I am not proud to say it, but I have certainly had some conversations with God where names of such people have come up!

When this starts to happen you will have a pretty high likelihood of giving up if you believe your holiness has earned you the right to things that are being withheld from you. You might do slightly better and manage to keep going but live a rather frustrated Christian life that likely involves lots of grumpy conversations with God. Ether way it isn’t good.

So if getting what we want is a poor motivator for long term holiness, what might a better approach look like? I’ll talk more about that in my next post.

Featured song: Sovereign Grace Music- Show us Christ

Quotable: The blessing of discipline

"Perhaps you've secretly wished you, too, could live with such a pleasure-based, unexamined attitude toward life. You've wondered why God seems so relentless in keeping the pressure on you, why every minor lack of surrender is met with biblical admonishment, why you can't just not care about being so spiritually responsible all the time, like when you're out to dinner, out of town, or otherwise off duty. Well, there's a very good reason: because you're His child. And our Father disciplines His children (see Heb. 12:7). His involvement in your affairs is a revelation of His affection and relationship with you. And if you'll listen and respond to it, not only will you stop considering His correction a curse to be endured, but you'll see Him turn it into a blessing before He's through. The sight of storm clouds in your life is an indication of His love for you, His desire to see you steered back in the direction of His will. Because, let's face it, His will is always our best place to be—not free of challenge, necessarily, but free of those discouraging nights and weekends when we feel like we've wasted our lives on nothing. Being true to His purpose sets us up for a life of lasting meaning. You may feel like God is spoiling your fun, but He's actually saving your skin. The worst thing in the world He could do to you (and me) is to do nothing while we're out there doing our dead-level best to get away from His will. So "do not fret because of evildoers, be not envious toward wrongdoers" (Ps. 37:1). He's on to you because you're His beloved."

From Life Interrupted: Navigating the Unexpected by Priscilla Shirer