The Music of His Promises: Listening to God with Love, Trust, and Obedience

Conservative evangelical grand dame Elliot adds to her oeuvre with this compilation of thought-for-the-day journal entries, which do indeed focus on God's promises, but in a decidedly unmusical manner. Elliot is well known among evangelicals for her plainspoken, unapologetic style of putative truth telling, and this book is no exception. Despite the fact that she includes 248 entries, Elliot sounds only three basic themes. First, God does not appreciate whiners: ""He sympathizes [with some tears]..., but tears that are the direct result of disobedience... cannot move him."" God, she explains further, ""is not a God of soupy sentimentality."" Second, the only option for a Christian is to stop complaining and take up the cross of Christ, or, in other words, deny the self and live in strict obedience to God. Third, those who choose ""the narrow way"" of cross-bearing will enjoy the fruits of God's promises: spiritual growth in this life and eternal intimacy with God in the life to come. Elliot's cruel-to-be-kind theology is standard conservative Christian fare, and she is a competent, but not gifted, writer. There are moments when she allows a bit of vulnerability to crack through her authoritarian persona; these fragments, as well as pieces of narrative about people she knows, are mostly frustrating because they offer a glimpse of the more heartfelt and, yes, musical book that this might have been. (July)