The further I read into this book, I see the simplicity and strength of the message that both Gavin and Anne portray. Lets be honest, we can all come into contact with these ‘Stumbling Blocks’ in our lives. The authors bring these obstacles to life using anecdotes and help you to relive their memories with them. They help you to get over, under, around and through every Stumbling Block we can face as Christians. Each chapter goes into detail on these obstacles and the questions at the end of them, really made me think about my life and my walk with God.
The authors particularly focus one chapter on the lack of men in church. At CVM this is a big issue that we are tackling because as the quote they use, by David Murrow, in this chapter says “Christianity’s primary delivery system, the local church, is perfectly designed to reach women and older folks. That’s why our pews are filled with them. But this church system offers little to stir the masculine heart, so men find it dull and irrelevant. The more masculine the man the more likely he is to dislike church.” He leaves a challenge to us men. “I want my son to be a better man than me. I want my daughter to marry a better man than me. But I wanna be a tough act to follow!”
This book has affirmed what I have seen in my life, that through perseverance and putting God first we can overcome these Stumbling Blocks. As we see in the story of David and Goliath, he was a lowly shepherd boy going against a 9 foot tall monster of a man, who scared everyone even King Saul. With a stone, slingshot and God David overcame the huge obstacle in his way, against all odds. We can’t see the benefits of the obstacles when we are going through them but as Gavin and Anne show in this book the benefits are so great afterwards. They use a cracking quote from Molière in the conclusion which confirms this. It says “The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.”
Jack Undrell (Intern 2)
This book is available to buy here
