By R. Loren Sandford | Chosen | softcover | 192 pages | $13.99
This book applies to anyone experiencing spiritual burnout. However, R. Loren Sandford’s background and retelling of conflicts with elders, gossips and immature church members mean its leading appeal will be to pastors. Still, Renewal for the Wounded Warrior can benefit the entire body of Christ with its exploration of the three stages of burnout and the “dark night of the soul” that follows.
It also contains valuable guidelines for sufferers and those trying to help them. The strongest chapter is the last—a comprehensive exploration of Job and those who attacked him when his suffering didn’t fit their preconceived notions of God’s grace. The same phenomenon occurs today, which the author says reduces God to a set of mechanical principles and heaps guilt on those whose experience doesn’t fit religious molds.
This book may realign your thinking about the role of life’s setbacks, which the author sees as God’s way of refining, correcting and stripping away our pride, vanity and self-centeredness. As he puts it: “There is a lot more to God and His goodness than we can ever learn of or even begin to fathom.”
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