Book Review #1: "In the Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day"

Okay, so I have to tell you about a book that is rocking my world. Are you ready? I have been reading In the Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars by Mark Batterson. I am loving it. I have been wanting to let you all know about this great read for some time now but, well, I wasn't finished reading it so it seemed a little premature to review it! Now that I have, I have to say that if you are looking for a book to jump-start your new year, this is a great pick!

Batterson is intelligent, and I love intelligent. He is also a man who seeks God and believes God can do grand things--and even that he wants to do grand things--through us, but sometimes we have to chase the lions in our path to see these grand things come to fruition. The dedication in this book reads:"Parker, Summer (great name-choice Mark!), and Josiah: May you grow up to be lion-chasers." Doesn't that alone make you want to pick this book up?!

Too often I let fear hold me down. I let defeat take the wind right out of my sails. I give up before I even start. This is a treatise to grab our spears and go for it. It's a reminder that sometimes we need to take calculated risks to see great things happen. Soren Kierkegaard said that "boredom is the root of all evil, the despairing refusal to be oneself." I may not fully agree, but I do believe that if we are living a boring life then we are probably not fully living the life we have been called too. In the Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day is a reminder that we can have big dreams because our God is infinite. No dream is too big for him.

What I like about the book is that it's not a promise that we'll always make our dreams a reality. It's not even a charge to follow every whim of a dream we ever have. It's a call to stop living the "safe" life and praying the "safe" prayers, and instead live like Jesus. It's an invitation to accept uncertainties as a beautiful part of life--one of the great things that makes life dynamic and multidimensional--and to take risks for the purpose of living out our God-ordained destinies. If you need some coaching to get back in the game and start playing, add this to your wishlist. And, for more fun, tune in to one of these podcasts. Batterson has some great sermons (not specifically related to this book) that are free and will give you something to chew on. Happy reading!

What book has been a game-changer for you this year?