Knowing God by Name

I admit when Knowing God by Name arrived on my doorstep, the subtitle made me a bit suspicious of the depths of the book’s contents. It is substitled, “A girlfriends in God faith adventure.” There is surely nothing wrong with the concept of girlfriends getting together to talk of God. Most certainly the Christian faith is something of an adventure (although I’d be really careful how I said that and in what context because that can lead to misconceptions). It’s just that most of the time that someone wants to saddle up alongside me with a, “Hey, girlfriend!” its usually followed up by shallow talk and flippant remarks. It’s not the subtitle I would have chosen for a book which is designed to be a devotional based on the names of God. So with those hesitations in mind, I opened the book.

After I got past the cover and the subtitle, I was delighted! This book is a very solid, decent look at what we can learn about God from the names given to Him in the Bible: “Yahweh Rapha” or ‘the God who heals’, “Miqweh Yisrael” or ‘My Hope’, etc. The three authors of this book, Sharon Jaynes, Gwen Smith and Mary Southerland do not prance about with a lot of “girl talk” but assume their readers have a desire to learn more about God and their relationship with Him and they mean to convey truths to deepen the reader’s walk with their Lord. I have no hesitations or complaints with their mission or their style in communicating these truths. I think they did a wonderful job.

If you are looking for a devotional-style book which will increase your understanding of who God is and why knowing who He is should matter to you, then this is a title which definitely deserves some consideration. It’s not flighty, it’s sensibly meaty, and it is very insightful. I would recommend it.

My thanks to Waterbrook Multnomah for sending a copy of this book my direction in order to facilitate this review. I received no additional compensation for sharing my thoughts and the thoughts shared are (as they always are!) 100% my very own!

Carrie blogs about books and her faith regularly over at Reading to Know.