Book Review: Your Time Is Now

      I was excited for the opportunity to read a book by Jonathan Evans titled Your Time Is Now. I received it a week or two ago, and have since completed it. Your Time Is Now is a book about really living into God's calling in your life. The author, Jonathan, both reflects on his own life and journey, and dives deeper into the Bible and what it says.

     To start, this book was a quick and easy read for me, and seems very much to be aimed towards pre-teens or young teens. Just my opinion, that isn't something I know for sure. Jonathan makes some great points, and encourages readers to really dig into what God has for them, not letting fear stop them from living the life God has called them to. He challenges readers to say yes, to act, but also to wait when the Lord calls them to wait. Ultimately, he says, live life listening to God. When God says act, act. When God says wait, wait. Whatever God says, your response should be "Yes Lord!"

     At the same time, while I appreciate the conclusions that Jonathan came to, I have some hesitations about how he could to those conclusions. In my (unprofessional, just regular Christian) opinion, the author came to some conclusions about people in the Bible, and about evens and circumstances, that are purely speculative, and he paints them as a truth. To be fair, the one time I'm particularly thinking of he does say it is his opinion, but that is a brief statement followed continuing to explore the meaning of that opinion as though it was fact.

     Ultimately, if you want to read an easy read that makes you think about what God has for your life, go ahead an read this book! I would just encourage you to read it with discernment, which you should be doing with everything anyway. If you give it to a youth to read, make sure to talk to them about it. It is a good starting point for conversations, but I'd hesitate to recommend it with no follow up or discussion. Also keep in mind that the author is a former pro football player, and a current chaplain in the NFL, so he has a lot of sports references and analogies, which work but if you're like me and don't know or care about football, it can get kind of old.

     So there you have it. A book that can be used as a starting point, but one that I'd encourage discussion around!

      *** Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. ***