100 Books Like Finding God. Finding Me.

I read this book when I was going through a troubled time, and I found it to be so helpful and encouraging! Tony writes in such a way that makes me feel like God can help me overcome any situation. As believers, we are not helpless or hopeless -- God has established powerful principles and strategies to help us thrive (not just survive) in the midst of life’s hard times. He uses examples from the Bible including Jonah, Jesus’ disciples, and the Apostle Paul, who all faced storms and troubles – way worse than mine. But he shows how they all got through their troubles and how I could do it too!

There have definitely been times in my life that I wanted to quit! Can you identify? I keep this book handy for days like those, and every time I grab it and read it, my faith gets renewed and I get encouraged enough to keep going. This book shows how to develop faith that won't quit – and if we don’t quit, we win in Jesus! 

I read this book in a particularly trying period in my life, when it just seemed like everything was going wrong. The title caught my eye because I sure did feel overloaded! Joyce helped me identify the worries in my life and offered practical, effective advice and scriptural wisdom I needed. I still grab it when I feel overwhelmed, and it helps me to manage stress. We all get stressed—from work, relationship challenges, financial trouble, or an overabundance of information. But Joyce shares inspiring insights from the Bible, and shows me how God’s strength can help me triumph over stress to achieve the joyful, peaceful life that God intends!

If you’ve been alive longer than 15 minutes, you’ve probably suffered a setback. I know I have! When hopes and dreams turn into a nightmare, it may seem like life is over and there’s no way out. But this book reminds me that God is in the business of resurrecting dead visions, and He has already prepared a comeback. Tim shares the strategies and motivation I needed to turn tragedy into triumph! 

Daniel Arnold’s book describes his journey to climb 15 of the Sierra’s most prominent peaks by their first-ascent routes—and mostly using similar gear to the first-ascent party. As a Sierra mountaineer and backpacker, his writing immediately captivated me because he wove his adventure together with that of the first ascent party. His careful historical research drew me back in time, providing context for why each climber was pursuing the summit, their personalities and passions, and, importantly, how well (or poorly…) documented the Sierra’s topography was at the time of their explorations. My mind kept wandering into the past, imagining a time when I didn’t have ready access to detailed maps and thinking how different Sierra exploring once was. 

This book opened my eyes to the ocean world and its huge significance for the future of our planet. In scratchy font across its black cover, it read: “To industry it’s tin, aluminium, oil, gas, sulfur, iron, coal, phosphorites, manganese, diamonds and gold. To fisheries it’s £3,000,000,000 per year. To military and political interests, it’s battlefields and missile bases. To you and me it’s a breath of fresh air and a nice place to make a splash.”

These words resonated with me as a young PhD student of ocean science in Canada. It was the early 1970s. We were optimistic. The UN had just adopted a resolution that stated, “the seabed and ocean floor…are the common heritage of mankind.” The book may be out of print, but its message is as vital as ever.

The book offers a powerful evocation through snapshots of lives in South London through recent post-war history. Something that emerges almost without you noticing is how much they were all affected by the political and economic changes of the eighties and early nineties. There is no political polemic here, but even those who prosper from these changes suffer from them, possibly more than the others. 

It presents recent history in which a way of life was changed forever without us realizing it, and we are still living with the consequences.

For anyone wishing to learn sleight of hand, this is the place to begin.

What makes the book so good are the more than 1500 illustrations combined with carefully written text. The book is loaded with more performance material than you’ll ever use, but so what?

The variety of magic taught is astonishing.  Bill—a noted sculptor as well as a magician—became a dear friend long after he had written this book. 

My wife and I once went to a magic convention with Bill and his wife Yvonne. The moment we walked into the main hall, he was surrounded by adoring fans who recognized him from his goatee and turtleneck and had grown up with his book by their bedside.    

We believe that at the heart of Christian theology is the truth that God has chosen to reveal himself definitively in Jesus Christ. This is how we know what God is like!

We don’t just love our enemies as an abstract ethic that we hope will work. In looking at Jesus, we now know that this is also what God is like. This book is a beautiful introduction to the theological truth that Jesus really is the image and nature of God. 

Miley does similar things in Becoming Fire as Miller does in Friendship with Jesus but with her own flavor.

Every week, she camps on a different story of the Bible.

You walk a mile in the sandals of a different character each day. That way, you develop a deeper understanding of the passage than you would if you just read it once and connected with the characters you naturally understand. 

Take the story about the sisters, Mary and Martha. Everyone relates to Martha who's super busy. That's our culture these days, right? But not as many people relate to Mary who camps at Jesus’ feet wanting to take in everything He has to say. 

I certainly didn't until God Mary'd me so much so that I ended up writing a book about it.

Through Becoming Fire, God will personalize the Scriptures for you, too!