Book Review: May the Faith be With You: 180 Devotions That Are Out of This World

For many years, the Star Wars franchise has been involved in the publishing industry, giving kids and adults alike the chance to use their minds to create fabulous foreign lands.  Those writings have saturated our society, and I am thankful for that.  Now, the venerable Zonderkids, longtime purveyors of excellent materials for the development of Christian youth, has produced a lovely little book that explores the life of a student of the force.

            May the Faith Be with You is a devotional book that takes the biblical story of salvation and brings it alive for the young reader.  It is a book of beautiful simplicity.  The captivating cover calls us to attention, letting us know that the celestial story of our Lord can become one of our own.

It is a well organized book, telling the story of God’s love for his people.  Starting off with devotions centered on the calling of the patriarch Abraham, and telling the story of his children.  This leads to meditations on King David, the Prophet Jonah - all of this leading up to the life of Jesus Christ. 

            This is an especially necessary thing to convey, since the book is aimed at younglings.  The devotions go through the story of the Old Testament, reminding the youths of the promises to come and the blessings found in being counted as a Christian in our modern world.  It is also nice how it calls back, from time to time, around the entire salvation history to support recurring themes over several devotions.

             As the users of this small devotional will notice, the story does not end with the promise, but with developing a positive spiritual life in Christ.  The structure of the devotional book guides its readers to a deeper understanding and progression in their walk with the Lord.  

            Each devotion begins with a small snippet of Scripture, usually just a verse or two, from the NIrV, which is a translation specifically aimed for the younger reader.   

            This is followed by the Master Moment (each Padawan needs to hear from his master, right?).  We are told that “these are great words that help give you the main idea of the devotion…They will remind you of God’s love for you.”  I found these incredibly helpful, both when I thought about the intended audience, and for myself.  Quite often, we can miss the meaning of a text, and the help of an experienced master can point us in the right direction.   

            Following this is a section called Ways of Wisdom.  This offers a bit of background on the short text, putting it into context.  For example when meditating on the Exodus story, we read that “God asked Moses to gather his family together.  They traveled to Egypt.  They were going to see Pharaoh.  God gave Moses the confidence and help he needed.  Moses was still nervous, but he knew God was there with him.”  What wonderful simplicity, clearly showing the youthful reader the underlying and basic truths of the text.   

            At the end of each devotion is the section entitled Use the Force.  Here the readers are offered some words with which to begin to pray.  It can be difficult to know what to say, especially for the young soul.  That is when the Force, the life and ethos of the Christian spirituality, is offered as a starting point for prayer.  I very much like the reminder that “sometimes you may even want to say, ‘God, I’m listening.’”  Sometimes this can be a very powerful moment, just sitting and listening for the still small voice of the Lord as it invades our world of digital clutter.

            Another nice attribute of this tome is the Scripture index.  Quite a wide variety of texts are covered in these 180 devotions.  They are beautifully indexed so that they can be referenced, even when they move on to the next devotional book. 

            This book, coming at the right time to spark the imaginations and interests of the young ones, would be an excellent gift to any child who is ready to examine their faith in an age appropriate manner (that should be all of them!).  It is a perfect size to be a stocking stuffer, gift for the kids in your family or for the children of your parish.  I hope that each of them will have the opportunity, during this coming season of consumerism and all encompassing marketing of space related movies, to find time to meditate on the larger and more necessary themes of love, devotion, and the blessings of the life in Christ.

This book was provided to me from the publishers, and I really liked it besides.  It can be found at Amazon, in many local Christian bookstores, and hopefully in many other stores as well. Seriously, this will be a very good gift for a padawan in your life.