Five stars – absolutely!  I highly recommend Anne Graham Lotz’s book The Magnificent Obsession: Embracing the God-Filled Life.  It’s a personal look at the life of Abraham from when God called him to leave Haran until Abraham sent a servant back to Haran to get a wife for Isaac.

If you can, I would take a full nine weeks to work through each chapter, reading the parallel text in Genesis, and making time to discuss what you are learning with a friend or small group.  The text needs to be digested slowly.  Our book club’s biggest problem was that we only had a few hours to talk about all the things in the book that had impacted us!

I was fascinated to see how members of our group were affected by different phases of Abraham’s life:

• Women enduring a season of upheaval and change were challenged to let go and leave it all behind and follow God through periods of uncertainty,
• Mothers of prodigal children were challenged to “lay down their Isaac” and let God be in control (in fact, we were all challenged to let God be in control!!),
• Women in mourning over the loss of a spouse, a marriage, or years in the wilderness found comfort and hope while reflecting on the faithfulness of God and particularly the death of Sarah,
• Some of us, prone to impatience, were challenged to not run ahead of God with our plans (remember Hagar and Ishmael?) but to walk patiently beside Him and wait for His timing and His plan, and
• Others were challenged to go deeper with God, to “Wake Up!” earlier, pray more diligently and specifically, and seek to know Him persistently and consistently.

Find time to read Anne’s book this year.  You will not regret it!