Another Mark Buchanan book that I really enjoyed was: The Holy Wild (Multnomah, 2005). Again this book has many stories. Some of the stories are about things that have happened to him, others are about people he knows. He also uses illustrations, often from movies which make the book enjoyable and easy to read.

Each chapter is mostly complete in itself so you can pick and choose what chapters you would like to read and in what order. My favourite story is the one he begins the book with about a female snake in their basement. They manage to remove her but not before she had laid eggs. Consequently Mark and his family kept finding baby snakes and they were never quite sure if they found them all. After this they never felt comfortable about sleeping in the basement, I mean, supposing there was still a baby snake, grown into an adult snake, lurking somewhere in the dark … So even on the hottest nights, they could never retreat to the coolness of the basement because they never quite trusted the bed. Of course, the bed had not changed it was still as sturdy and reliable as before. But now they were never quite sure whether they were safe from snakes. Mark goes on to say that often this is how we feel about God we are never quite sure if we can really trust Him, can we really put the full weight of our belief in Him? In a nutshell the book is about this issue, trusting in the character of God, rather than God’s actions or inactions.

I also really enjoyed the way Mark tells the story of the Good Samaritan and manages to bring out aspects of the story that I had never seen before which is quite amazing considering the number of times I’ve read it.

Finally in another story Mark relates the tale of a women whose husband left her for another women after many years of apparently happy married life. She said this, “In the first year or so after he left, there were many things I thought of doing – selfish, sinful things. But you know what kept me from doing them? Thinking that one day I will stand before God in heaven and to explain to God why living for Him, by His strength wasn’t enough.”

A good read.