Shadow of the Almighty

It's not often that books make me cry, but I closed this one with tears running down my cheeks. Not because he dies - I knew he died - but because I long to live my life with such passion and purpose. People don't get biographies written about them just because of how they died, but because of how they lived. Jim Elliot wasn't just martyred trying to take the gospel to a violent jungle tribe who had never heard it. He lived with a passion to share the gospel with everyone he possibly could, especially those who had never heard it. That passion, that purpose, met it's fulfillment when he willingly gave up his life pursuing the mission of his Creator. His martyrdom was the natural overflow of the life he lived. In youth group last spring, I told the teenagers perhaps the reason we're not persecuted for being Christians in America is that we're not being very good Christians. Perhaps if we took our mission a little more seriously, like Jim Elliot did, then maybe our opposition would take us a little more seriously. As it is, our comfortable, self-centered culture has lulled us into a tolerant silence so we can no longer tell the difference between Christ and the world. I wish we would stop living such a me-centered non-Christianity. I wish we would read more biographies of people who radically dedicated their lives to the mission of sharing the gospel. And naturally, we starting with me. I highly recommend this book. Prepare to be challenged and inspired. Pick it up. Seriously.