Sweet & Simple Moments with God Devotional

I am not typically a fan of devotional style books, but I keep trying them in the hopes of finding a few that I really like. I have been working on developing the habit of reading a little bit of the Bible each day and find that sometimes it is easier when I read a little bit of something inspiring either before or after I read a few chapters of the Bible. When I saw The One Year Sweet and Simple Moments with God Devotional listed on Tyndale Blog Network for review, I figured I'd request it and give devotionals another chance. I am so glad that I did!

Here is the description taken from the back of the book: 

As women, sometimes we’re running so fast that we forget to do the things that will most revive our spirits and renew our hearts. In The One Year Sweet and Simple Moments with God Devotional, Kim Newlen shares heart-lightening insights she’s gathered from pausing and listening to God in her day-to-day life, encouraging us all to take a sweet and simple moment to be still with God every day. When we do, we’ll be surprised at how much of a difference it will make in everything else! This year, make every moment count through spending sweet and simple time with the One who can carry your burdens best.

I'll admit that when I first received this book, I looked through it, read a few pages and then sort of forgot about it. I mean, I knew I had it but so many other books made their way to the top of my pile of books to read. I picked up The Sweet and Simple Moments with God Devotional again and read the passage for October 29th which talked about the importance of 'minding your manna' or more simply, making God's Word a habit. The key phrase from that day reads in part, "Read God's Word, chew on it, and do what it says."

Because I needed to write up a good review, I decided to flip backwards and read a few more passages to get a better feel for the book as a whole. The next devotion I read was for September 27th, which talked about a specific verse in scripture, 1 Chronicles 28:9. This verse is one in which King David is giving his final advice to his son, Solomon because David is dying. King David tells his son to learn to know God so that he may serve and worship him. The devotion talks about living a life seeking God so that we may all worship and serve him. The key phrase I found in this devotion was, "Living the seek life includes reading God's Word to know him more."

Flipping further back to April 27th, I read the benefits of reading God's Word as written in Psalm 119 and then on April 26th the key phrase stated, "Let's water ourselves daily with God's word! Let's think about the fact that healthy things grow, then make sure we're doing our part to feed ourselves with God's Word so our spiritual health doesn't fade like our hair color but grows stronger."

Obviously, something is telling me to make reading the Bible daily more of a priority! But set aside for a moment the actual messages of the daily devotions, (of which there are many I simply chose this grouping as it really spoke clearly to me) I truly enjoyed the way these devotions are written. Kim Newlen writes as if she were speaking to a close friend and that makes it really easy to read through and gain a new understanding of whatever topic she happens to be discussing.

I had originally planned on reading through this devotional to review it and then probably passing it along to someone else to use as I haven't been a big fan of devotionals in the past but after reading a wide selection of the daily sections, I feel compelled to keep it so that I can read through it more thoroughly using it the way it is intended. I will be adding this book to my daily Bible reading in the future, though I do have one other devotional to review so this one may have to wait a few weeks.

I received this book for free through the Tyndale Blog Network in exchange for my honest review, all opinions stated are entirely my own.