Book Reviews From 2022

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I love reading, and I love sharing my love of good books with others! Here is a list of the books I read and reviewed in 2022. Click on a title to be taken to that review.

Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

Cary Grant

Contending For Our All

Father Sergius

Hank Greenberg: The Story Of My Life

Living In A Gray World

Out Of The Depths

Roots Of Endurance

Simple Truths Of Leadership

Spurgeon And The Psalms

Susanna Wesley

The Holy War

The Legacy Of Sovereign Joy

The Poetry Of Prayer

The Self-Aware Leader

Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?

Who’s Pushing Your Buttons?

Here are my book reviews for 2011.

Here are my book reviews for 2012.

Here are my book reviews for 2013.

Here are my book reviews for 2014.

Here are my book reviews for 2015.

Here are my book reviews for 2016.

Here are my book reviews for 2017.

Here are my book reviews for 2018.

       Here are my book reviews for 2019.

Here are my book reviews for 2020.

Here are my book reviews for 2021.

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

Susanna Wesley (book review)

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on AppleSpotify, or Audible. 

I think most people are familiar with the saying, “Behind every good man there is a good woman.” In the case of Samuel and Susanna Wesley almost the opposite is true: Susanna excelled as a godly mother despite the obstinacy and shortcomings of her husband Samuel. Arnold A. Dallimore delivers a fair overview of their lives in his biography of Susanna Wesley. 

Rev. Dallimore does an admirable job of telling Susanna’s story through the first person accounts of almost all of the Wesley family members. He has culled through the historical records, reading the letters of Samuel, Susanna, their children, and their relatives to give us a fairly unbiased look at this notable family. The subtitle of the book is, “The mother of John and Charles Wesley,” which is no small gift to the world! The preaching and song-writing ministries of these two brothers has had a huge impact on both the secular and church worlds, which is still being felt today. 

Samuel Wesley at times was distant from his family, to the extent of even abandoning them for a period of time, and was a very poor provider for his family. They were constantly in debt and struggling for the basic necessities. But despite these obstacles, Susanna created her own curriculum to instruct her children, and continued to correspond with them into their adulthood to give them her motherly wisdom. 

What a debt of gratitude we owe to this godly woman for not only persevering but thriving in the face of challenges that would have thwarted most people. And we also should be grateful to Arnold Dallimore for his well-researched biography of this amazing woman. 

(I previously reviewed Rev. Dallimore’s biography of George Whitefield.) 

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

Susanna Wesley On Prayer

Susanna Wesley

Some powerful quotes about prayer from Susanna Wesley—

“Make plain to me that no circumstance nor time of life can occur but I may find something either spoken by our Lord Himself or by His Spirit in the prophets or apostles that will direct my conduct, if I am but faithful to You and my own soul.”

“Help me, O Lord, to make a true use of all disappointments and calamities in this life, in such a way that they may unite my heart more closely with You. Cause them to separate my affections from worldly things and inspire my soul with more vigor in the pursuit of true happiness.”

“I thank You, O God, for the relief and satisfaction of mind that come with the firm assurance that You govern the world; for the patience and resignation to your providence that are afforded as I reflect that even the tumultuous and irregular actions of the sinful are, nevertheless, under Your direction, who are wise, good, and omnipotent, and have promised to make all things work together for good to those who love You.”

“Enable me to keep my heart with all diligence, my thoughts and affections, for out of them are the issues of life. How often have I offended in this kind! Cleanse me from secret faults, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Help me to guard against vain and unnecessary words, and to speak of You, my God, with that reverence, that humility, that gravity that I ought.”

“O God, I thank You because, when I have been for some time interrupted in my work and my thoughts of You have been diverted, I have found how pleasing it is to my mind to feel the motions of Your Spirit quickening me and exciting me to return.”

“I give You praise, oh God, for a well-spent day. But I am yet unsatisfied, because I do not enjoy enough of You. I would have my soul more closely united to You by faith and love. I would love You above all things. You, who has made me, knows my desires, my expectations. My joys all center in You and it is You Yourself that I desire; it is Your favor, Your acceptance, the communications of Your grace that I earnestly wish for, more than anything in the world.”