BookPastor >> "It's a God Thing Vol 2" (Don Jacobson)

This review was first published at Panorama of a Book Saint on Dec 5th, 2014.

conrade

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TITLE: It's a God Thing Volume 2: When Miracles Happen to Everyday People
AUTHOR: Don Jacobson and K-Love
PUBLISHER: Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2014, (216 pages).

We often read about miracles in the Bible. Miracles like people being healed; water turned into wine; food getting multiplied; and miraculous signs and wonders from both the Old and New Testament. Are miracles real? Do they still occur today? This volume sings out 46 stories of miraculous events happening to ordinary people. The author himself is one living testimony. In 1980, Jacobson accidentally shot himself in the woods with a 12-gauge shotgun. For nine hours, he bled and death appeared imminent. Until he was miraculously found. This event spawned a desire to search and to collect miracle stories to remind us that God is still present today. Don Jacobson was formerly President and owner of Multnomah Publishers, and is well known in the Christian publishing world.

With the success of the first volume about miracle stories happening to everyday people, together with K-Love radio network, this second volume continues the stories. The miracles cover all walks of life, many different situations of dire needs, and the amazing results of how God works. Like how Steve managed to escape from a runaway truck; how Kellie White managed to retrieve a lost "special thing" for a stranger; Steve Nestor's story of being healed from Stage IV Hodgkin's Lymphoma; the inexplicable disappearance of cancer from a patient; about a Vietnamese refugee fleeing the Communist regime on land and surviving pirates in dangerous waters; and even the sight of "three perfect sunflowers" that amazing appeared to touch a special moment for people in grief.

Often told in the first person, the stories read like a "Chicken Soup" series of stories to encourage the weary and the discouraged. The difference is the way the stories are told. All the stories are seen human impossibility in sight. All occurred when individuals seemed to be in their wit's end. Then the impossible happened. Just like the moment in Mark 10:27 when Jesus said to the disciples after his saying about a camel entering the eye of a needle: "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."

Let this book accompany the many stories through the ages of how God works. For those feeling a bit down and almost out, this book may give them a fresh dose of hope and faith. For those who are skeptical of the stories, learn to give the storytellers the benefit of the doubt. After all, miracles defy natural reasoning. Rationale and logic do not add up to explaining all the things in this world, let alone the unknown universe. As Christmas approaches, it is good to be reminded of what the Christian story is about. Quoting CS Lewis,

"The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left." (CS Lewis, "The Grand Miracle" in God in the Dock, Eerdmans, 1970, p80)

May these stories point us more toward the God of the Universe, the Grand Miracle of miracles, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rating: 4.25 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book is provided to me courtesy of the publisher and Shelton Interactive in exchange for an honest review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.