Psalm 16

Psalm 16 (ESV)

You Will Not Abandon My Soul

A Miktam of David.

16 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
² I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
    I have no good apart from you.”

³ As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
    in whom is all my delight.

⁴ The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
    their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
    or take their names on my lips.

⁵ The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
    you hold my lot.
⁶ The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

⁷ I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
    in the night also my heart instructs me.
⁸ I have set the Lord always before me;
    because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
    my flesh also dwells secure.
¹⁰ For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
    or let your holy one see corruption.
¹¹ You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

This is a crazy year in the United States. We have two terrible choices for presidential candidates. We have inane fighting over what makes a male or female. We have class differences, racial differences, religious differences, moral differences, etc.

I worry for my children and what the world will be like for them. What decisions will they make as they grow up? Will they remember the truths that their father and I impart to them? Will they make good choices in choosing a spouse, a career, etc.?

Thankfully these worries and concerns have no bearing on my ultimate Confidence. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Whatever happens in this world, I know what the future holds. That Christ will return, wipe away every tear from our eyes, and that he will restore all things.

Finally Had Some Time

So those who follow my blog may get a ton of notifications about new posts today. And some of those posts may seem odd, because they are all out of order. Well, I figured out the issue of the auto-posting between Goodreads (where I keep track of what I’m currently reading or want to read) and WordPress.So I am posting the book reviews with the date of when I finished the book. This way I can look back and see what I was reading and when, too.

I like to cross-blog my book reviews, especially for some of the newer fiction that I would like to see continue (like the Lois Lane series by Gwenda Bond), and also for the independently published books that I’ve read (like from Louisa Koch and Ray Keating). I hope that my reviews are useful for some of you, and that maybe you’ll take an interest in a book that you may have never heard of otherwise. That’s actually how I got an interest in the Lois Lane series and the Pastor Stephen Grant series. I read a review of the first book in each series in WORLD Magazine, and they sounded interesting to me.

So bear with me today, please! I hope I won’t have to do this again. 🙂

Review: Root of All Evil?: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel

Root of All Evil?: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel by Ray Keating

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Root of All Evil?” by Ray Keating is the second novel in his series with the character Pastor Stephen Grant. I love a book that can make me smile, frown – and maybe even wince, get teary, and laugh. The characters are realistic, lovable, relatable, and memorable.
In this installment, Pastor Stephen Grant is thrust into the middle of another sinister plot, but this time he has a new wife to worry about him. I can really relate to Jennifer Grant’s character because I am a pastor’s wife. I know how it feels to have plans interrupted by important work matters, but I can’t imagine how I would feel if I knew my husband was going off with a CIA team to apprehend a suspect in a potential gun fight.
I really enjoyed reading “Root of All Evil?” just like I really enjoyed reading “Warrior Monk.” As a Lutheran, I appreciate the worldview and Gospel proclamation in the novels. If you like crime novels, Christian fiction with more realistic to life characters (warning: some bad language, violence, and general human sinfulness), or simply good storytelling, then Ray Keating’s Pastor Stephen Grant novels are for you.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Double Down (Lois Lane, #2)

This is the first book in my Summer 2016 reading adventures. It felt so nice to just sit and read and read! Double Down was a quick read, too, so plenty of summer break left for more magazines and books.

Gwenda Bond gives readers a Lois Lane with a voice that is clever, witty, and youthful. In Double Down, Lois finds herself in the middle of another great story in the making. Her friend Maddy’s sister is behaving strangely, and Lois is determined to get to the bottom of it. Cleaning up organized crime in a shady neighborhood of Metropolis, mad scientists, framed politicians, and more comprise a fast-paced plot that made for a quick and fun read. Lois and her friends find themselves in another situation that could be too much to handle, but with some support from her online friend SmallvilleGuy, they manage to save the day and land a story on the front page of the Daily Planet.

Keep them coming, Gwenda Bond, because I’m enjoying these stories immensely!

Summer Reading

We are wrapping up the bulk of our school year this week. We are finishing our math books and our language program, which will leave us with just science and history to complete. I am getting ready to tackle a stack of books that I otherwise have not been able to get to yet.

Part of the reason I have not read my goal of one or two books per month so far this year is that I have been trying to catch up on reading our magazines that we are subscribed to. We get WORLD Magazine, Salvo, Answers, Missouri Conservationist, and StLZoo. Thankfully three of those are quarterly, but WORLD comes every two weeks, so I can get behind if I don’t want to read to myself after all the reading with the children for school.

On my list are Root of All Evil? and An Advent for Religious Liberty by Ray Keating. I read his first novel in this series Warrior Monk a few months ago and really enjoyed it. Also on my list are Being Lutheran by A. Trevor Sutton, The Saving Truth: Doctrine for Laypeople by Kurt E. Marquart, Double Down by Gwenda Bond, and Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty by Charles Leerhsen. The latter two I have been waiting for from the library. Not sure in what order I will attempt to tackle these. That will probably depend on the library books, since they are new and others will be waiting for me to finish them.

Of course, I would also love to read some of the classics on our home shelf like Jane Eyre and The Count of Monte Cristo. What is on your reading list?