Books That Have Helped Me: Part I

Over the last several months, I either have read or am currently reading several books that have had a powerful impact upon my life. I want to share something about them with you over the next two weeks.

The Hiding Place

This is a powerful and moving story. Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch believer, lived through the Holocaust. She and her family were heavily involved in the Dutch underground during World War II, and helped to save the lives of hundreds of Jews. On February 28, 1944, the family was arrested. Corrie, along with her sister Betsie, spent 10 months in concentration camps, the final one being the infamous Ravensbruck. Betsie died there, but Corrie was released due to a clerical error (God’s providence!). I visited the house where it all took place in August 2008, before I read the book. Now, when I see pictures of concentration camps, I am often reminded of what Corrie’s sister Betsie said: “There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.” If Corrie ten Boom could go through such horrors, and yet still trust in God, how can I not trust Him in my relatively easy life?

The Knowledge of the Holy

No-one writes like A.W. Tozer. The Knowledge of the Holy is love for and knowledge of God, distilled into meaning-filled chapters. If you underline the books you read, as I hope you do, you will underline almost every paragraph! This book has more in it than I can grasp and absorb in one reading. It has impacted my spiritual life in a meaningful way. Consider these excerpts:

“The doctrine of the Trinity is truth for the heart. The spirit of man alone can enter through the veil and penetrate into that Holy of Holies. ‘Let me seek Thee in longing,’ pleaded Anselm, ‘let me long for Thee in seeking; let me find Thee in love, and love Thee in finding.’ Love and faith are at home in the mystery of the Godhead. Let reason kneel in reverence outside” (from Chapter 4).

“We can never know who or what we are till we know at least something of what God is. For this reason the self-existence of God is not a wisp of dry doctrine, academic and remote; it is in fact as near as our breath and as practical as the latest surgical technique” (from Chapter 5).

“Sin has many manifestations but its essence is one. A moral being, created to worship before the throne of God, sits on the throne of his own selfhood and from that elevated position declares, ‘I AM.’ That is sin in its concentrated essence; yet because it is natural it appears to be good” (from Chapter 5).

Read this book. It will challenge your misconceptions about God, and give you a hunger to truly know the One “with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13).