Today I might walk perilously up close to the line of offending everybody. And me not that confrontational of a person, well, really, not confrontational at all, but really more aggressive in the passive sense of the word. I’m so thankful for the Internet which allows me the wide open space to whack at people in a general way without ever having to meet them personally. You know, in a gentle way that “raises the tone” and “takes the feelings of other people seriously”. So, if you think of yourself as someone with tender feelings, indeed, as just a basically nice person, I hope you will either immediately quit reading this and come back tomorrow when I’m chattering on about the daisies in my garden, or read on with the purpose in your heart to forgive me for that offense which I am about to cause. ‘Stop hedging!’ you might be muttering, ‘just get on.’ Yes yes, but you see, I came into possession of an extremely popular book, a book that has been sold in the millions of copies, garnering that coveted New York Times best status, a book so popular it’s been spun into an app and a version for kids. The substance of this book has hit a nerve, a tuning fork striking just the right note so that Christians everywhere sit up and say That’s What I’ve Been Looking For. Which leads me to posit that one, Christians everywhere are starving for something, and two, being starving, they will devour whatever is in front of them, even if it’s not the something that is needed. So, what is it? What is this great and wonderful popular book? By now you’ve become exasperated and scrolled down and know that it is Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling. Here’s the copy I came into the way having. 
Isn’t it lovely? It’s very pink and soft in the hand. My four year old came up and took it from me and patted it and breathed, in rapture, “It’s so beautiful! What a beautiful bible!” “Yes,” I said, “it is beautiful. But it isn’t a bible.” “Yeth it is,” she lisped, dropping it and skipping off into the wild blue yonder.
And I thought to myself, what absolute marketing genius. 
Here is a book that looks and feels like a bible. It has ‘Jesus’ right there on the binding. When you open up, the first page is a place to write a beautiful dedication, just like in my favorite bible which feels exactly like this book. 
If I were wandering forlornly around a bookstore, looking for something, longing for help, and hope, and saw this beautiful book with the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Calling’, and I was not growing fat on a healthy diet of preaching and bible study, I would probably grasp at it like a drowning person. I mean, isn’t the modern Christian a beleaguered, stressed, lonely person? A person wanting to know God? A person wanting to know that there is someone there, interested in her needs, his anxieties? And what happens when this person goes to church? The bible is probably referred to, in an honoring way, but I would put five cents on the table that all kind of obstacles are put in the way of its being understood or read. And more than that, the hint of a suggestion hangs in the air that the bible is not enough. It’s good, you should read it, but if you want to know and eperience God, you’re going to need a little something extra. Sarah Young says this herself in describing her journey to writing this book. She read a devotional book that, “emohasizes the importance of spending time alone with God in quiet, uninterrupted communion.” She “began seeking God’s Presence in earnest.” She did this “equipped with Bible, devotional book, prayer journal, pen, and coffee.” At one point, she writes, “I was suddenly enveloped in a brilliant light and profound peace. I lost all sense of time as I experienced God’s Presence in this powerful way.” This experience led to her to another devotional book and the belief that God would speak to her, directly. She writes, “I knew God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more. Increasingly, I wanted to hear what God has to say to me personally on a given day. I decided to listen to God with pen in hand, writing down whatever I believed He was saying.” And that, I think, is the heart of the matter. The ‘yearning for more’ has filled up the wide world of Christianity in the west. We don’t want to be satisfied, as the psalmist says, with God’s likeness, with the picture of him painted in the Bible. We want more, and even, something else altogether. Funnily enough, the Jesus talking to Sarah Young sounds so, I don’t know, like the writer of a modern devotional work. And on that note, I will pause and pick up here again tomorrow to consider what Jesus has been saying to Ms. Young and if it sounds anything like the Jesus in other popular books, like maybe the Bible itself. Sorry, I guess I lied about the daisies.
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