connie barrett – faith undiluted
Overview: ‘Frank’ consists of 50 devotions, which have been tailored to suit group studies as well as individual use. This tool for quiet times will challenge you to be real with yourself, get real with your God, and make a change to your lifestyle.
Focus-points: these are used throughout the devotions, providing Bible passages, prayers, thoughts for the day and questions to get your brain in gear.
Message: this book goes by the name of ‘Frank’ as its central theme centres around the fact that in order for you to be open and honest with God you have to be honest with yourself first. This book speaks of honesty and integrity, understanding that they both must go hand in hand in order to add weight to your Christian walk.
Vision: I would love to see honesty. We’ve lost sight of this, as Christians we try and mask ourselves and pretend to be some someone we’re not. We try and hide from our weaknesses when we should realise that our failures are key to our faith. When we’re honest with where God has brought us from and where we’re at it’s then that we can clearly see where we’re going.
Content: I’ve briefly summarised some of the devotions below to give you a flavour of what ‘Frank’ consists of…
1. Tuning in- homing in on 1 Kings 19 this devotion spells out how to listen out for God and not drown out the ‘gentle whisper’.
2. Stone-cold Christians- encourages the readers to put themselves under the microscope and put themselves through a ‘spiritual MOT’ to see if they’re in danger of becoming stone-cold.
3. Defining the Divinity- reminds us that we can’t put God in a box. As the readers work through Psalm 145 their eyes will be opened to the fact that God’s character is indefinite, we can’t squeeze Him into a mould.
4. Fat-heads- this rather strange title reminds us that our heads should never outsize our hearts, knowing is not enough. We shouldn’t keep the Message to ourselves, we should share the Good News of the Gospel.
5. Wait until God says go- Habakkuk 2:2-3 makes it clear that we’re to wait on God. For as long as it takes. After turning to the story of Abraham we can see that if we don’t wait for God to give the go-ahead there’s a danger of running on ahead of Him, out of His will.
6. Modern-day Martha- how can we be less like Martha and more like Mary? This devotion stresses that we shouldn’t become so wrapped up in the service that we forget Who we’re serving.
7. Driven by doubt- what do you do when your prayers are rebounding? This devotion provides a real boost when your struggling in your faith, turning to the Psalms and showing that King David shared in the same struggles.
8. One-man-band- talking from personal experience I encourage the readers to learn from my mistakes. After studying the story of Jonah going the opposite way you can see that running from God gets you nowhere.
9. Nightmare- painting a picture of Jesus’ return I encourage the readers to try and imagine what it will be like when Jesus comes to bring His people home. Will He find us sleeping on the job? Or will He find us awake, and active, in our faith?
10. Materialism matters? Are we all that different from the people of Israel? The story of the golden calf encourages us to take a long hard look in the Mirror and see if there’s any idols in our lives. God sees idolatry as betrayal, we should give up our idol-worship once and for all.
11. Perseverance pays off- taking you through ‘the school of prayer’ I talk about how we should be steadfast and stubborn in prayer! Through sharing a personal story about having to be persistent in prayer I show that God rewards those who wait long enough to hear the answer.
12. Watching and waiting- this devotion tells the story of the prodigal’s rebellion, the Father’s love, and the restoration of their relationship. When we parallel the prodigal’s life with our own we can see that our Father comes running when we too repent.
