REVIEW Unforced Rhythms: Why Daily Devotions Aren’t for All of Us
Today I’m excited to review Unforced Rhythms: Why Daily Devotions Aren’t for All of Us
Read this book.
But perhaps you’d like to hear a little more about why I would recommend it so highly.
I have spent much of my life battling the feeling that I don’t quite fit in. In each and every group I have been part, I have seen incongruence between myself and everybody else. From my earliest memories, I had a foreboding sense that I was different. Oh, the contexts changed, yes, and with them, my awareness of what was different about me.
Well, Gwen Jackson wrote very clearly of one of these contexts where I had felt different for a long time: how, as a Christian, to engage with God. She spells it out clearly: there is no one cut-and-dried pattern of nurturing relationship with God.
Quiet time
Take me back 19 years to the point in my life where I surrendered myself to the Lord. All of a sudden, I was a new believer. And I had many well-meaning people around me urging me that the life of all believers includes “quiet time” with the Lord. Preferably in the dark hours of the morning. Always with a Bible and heartfelt prayer, and eternal eagerness to grow. Ideally with a journal at hand to capture all the amazingly powerful things to be discovered each and every time.
It didn’t take too long to discover how forced this felt for me.
Fast forward several years, and I finally seemed to find a rhythm. I found a season and a stride where I discovered closeness with the Lord. It wasn’t structured necessarily, no neat verses and choruses, but it was rich. Because it wasn’t always the same. Sometimes it was out under the open sky; other times in the quiet of a sleeping house. Sometimes it was in the tune I was making on my keys, and other times in the chaotic noise and laughter of a crowd around my table.
And sometimes it did involve a quiet morning moment, the bible, a journal and prayer. And it was all good. Even if I didn’t meet the Lord every morning at the same time, same place, He and I were okay with that – I was still meeting Him in a way that matched my internal rhythms.
A Provocative Tagline
I sat with Gwen at a retreat in the mountains of Haiti last May when she was wrestling with the tagline for her new book.
I recently caught up with this author again and asked her a few questions.
From the Author
- Elizabeth: Who should read this book?
- Gwen : Anybody who is struck by the subtitle, “Why Daily Devotions Aren’t for All of Us”, will want to read Unforced Rhythms
- Elizabeth: Why should believers read Unforced Rhythms and how might the book impact their journey of joy?
- Gwen: Unforced Rhythms gives permission to believers to connect with God in the freedom of their own natural Life Rhythm. For too long, believers have been confined to morning and/or evening devotions, believing that having daily devotions was a measurement of Christian maturity. Certainly, spending time with God, in the Word, and in prayer, are important elements to spiritual growth and life change, but the daily part can feel legalistic, defeating, and tedious. Many non-daily people feel like they’re going through the motions or checking off a duty on their spiritual to-do list. Readers will find themselves identifying with one of the three Life Rhythms described in the book. Once they discover their unique Life Rhythm, they will be free to connect with God without the guilt and condemnation that often plagues believers.
