Ever read a book so good you wish that you had obtained it earlier?

This is one of those books.

Sun Stand Still is the first book out of the gate from Elevation Church pastor Steven Furtick and it is a Tour de Force.  It’s a book that when you pick up you don’t want to put it down because of the power in the pages.  (I planned to read a chapter before bed the night I received it free for review from Multnomah Press…133 pages later I had to force myself to go to bed!)

The concept behind the book isn’t anything that in reality shakes earth.  It’s not something that we don’t really know as followers of Christ.  The problem is many times the knowledge of God doesn’t go from our head to our heart and we don’t stop to realize the God who made the sun stand still for Joshua is the same God we worship today.

The.

Exact.

Same.

One.

So why do most of pray something lame like “God, be with me today” instead of really laying out our lives before the One who can make the sun stand still or who can keep rain from falling on Israel for over three years?  Furtick makes us take a hard look at the way we view God…the way we believe who He is.  He makes us take what is in our heads from Sunday School and step out into  our lives with a rock solid belief that He is the same as in the pages of the Bible.

I wish could share this entire book with you but I’m going to put a few parts to whet your appetite.  Furtick writes about God starting to move in great ways with us in the ordinary parts of our life and he uses the story of Moses and the burning bush as an example.  Think about it: Moses is in the desert, tending sheep that belong to his father-in-law.  Ordinary day, right?  Then a bush starts burning.  Furtick encourages us to look for these kinds of moments in our ordinary days when God starts burning a bush where we work, go to school or go to church.

Don’t think this is a “name it and claim it” kind of book…it’s not.  Furtick doesn’t preach a gospel of you doing it yourself.  This is all about God and allowing Him to work through you.  Still, he encourages us to move forward into what we feel God leading us to do as we pray our Sun Stand Still prayers and not be idle.  Furtick challenges us on the notion we have to be completely sure before we move into where we feel God leading us.  He even admits that at most we can be “55 percent sure” it’s God leading us.  He tells us to move anyway.

Furtick also addresses how we should respond when we pray for the sun to stand still and it still goes down.  I was very happy to see that chapter as someone who’s had more night than day over the last few years.  Furtick didn’t just write a “rah-rah” feel good book.

This is a very powerful book and if you’re someone who wants to really chase after what God is calling you to do in life then you need to pick up this book.

I don’t think it was coincidence God dropped this book in my lap right before Mustard Seed Year started yesterday.  (And when the verse driving MSY, Matthew 17:20, appeared on page 193 I laughed so hard I cried.)