MAKE MY LIFE COUNT

A debut Christian manual exhorts believers to put their total trust in God.

Smith’s passionately written book features a series of hard-won spiritual lessons and insights revolving for the most part around what the author sees as the material world’s inherent tendency to distract and deceive. Christians, she urges, must always strive to utilize a different kind of seeing—they should navigate through the temptations and degradations of the world using not the gauge of normal life, but an all-encompassing trust in God’s guidance. “When we are focused on Him, we are free to walk and exercise the equipping that we receive from Him,” Smith writes. “Keeping our thoughts focused on Him is faith in action because we are placing our trust in Him and not walking by what we see.” As God’s children, she insists, believers should be motivated and led by the Holy Spirit in their spiritual journeys through a fallen realm beset with “a host of hassles.” The author frankly acknowledges the complex modern world and its demands, but her emphasis throughout her book is on imploring her fellow Christians to rely on God to overcome those difficulties. One of the main strengths of Smith’s faith narrative is its sympathy; she returns often to the fallible experiences of her readers in which they may feel sorely tried, as though they were standing alone in a godless society. In countering these emotions, she uses personal convictions and well-chosen Scriptural quotations to remind her readers that “God works from within” and that therefore, the inner dimension is the place to start in renewing the strength of their faith. She advocates focusing on the “still small voice” that can steer readers even when they feel most forsaken. Many of these encouragements are standard fare for Christian guides of this type, but they’re no less powerful for their familiarity when they’re presented this energetically.

A strongly worded and empathetic call for Christians to accept “the counsel of God” in all things.