If you've been feeling like there should be more in your relationship with God but you don't know where to start, start with your Bible and Sharon Jayne's "A Sudden Glory". Using Acts 17:28 as her base, Sharon relates how living in God will fill the "there should be more" gaps.

Well written, well backed by Scripture. Has a great discussion guide in the back for individual study or small groups. In fact, that's part of what took me so long to finish this book, the study questions in the back. They really bring it full-circle and help you understand the concepts in the chapters better.

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

"A Sudden Glory" by Sharon Jaynes is one of the best books I've read, in a long time, on how to see those special moments of God's touch in our every day life. We all have "dry" times in our life, when God seems so far away. But really, He has not moved, we are just are not seeing clearly. She encourages readers to begin a "Sudden Glory" notebook, where each day you record those "sudden glory" moments with God - by recording them, when you have a "dry" season rereading these "sudden glories" will be refreshment to a weary soul.

Sharon's style of writing is fabulous...very conversational - like sitting at the kitchen table with a special friend, chatting about the things of life while sipping on Lattes. Every page of the book contains rich nuggets that would make wonderful teaching moments or even to expand on and make into sermons.

One of my favorite, and most impacting, segments of the book was where Sharon described being drawn into John chapter 20 - she literally envisioned herself being with Mary Magdalene before the empty tomb and then racing back to the disciples with the news of Jesus being risen. As she continued to read the passage and envision the scene, the Lord spoke to her about the fact that the disciples didn't recognize Jesus until He revealed His scars to them. He went on to tell her that this is how Jesus is still revealed to the world today - "when My people are not ashamed to show their scars." Sharon continues, "This was a moment of sudden glory that changed my life and my ministry forever. He showed me the power and purpose behind the scars in my own life: to help others recognize Jesus. The scars of my past (and your past) are not something to be ashamed of. They tell a story. A story of wounds healed by the Healer. They tell of the power at work in our lives."

Included in this book is a study guide for use with a small group or individually. I would highly recommend going through the study guide, not just to get the most from this book, but to go deeper in your understanding of Jesus and his love, which in turn will enhance and deepen your relationship with Him. And it's not just a page or two of discussion questions either....it's a well-rounded, complete chapter-by-chapter study guide with several questions per chapter (25 pages total!).

This book will definitely be going into my "ministry" library!

I'd like to thank the wonderful people from Waterbrook-Multnomah and Blogging For Books for the complimentary copy of this wonderful book.

A Sudden Glory is an almost poetic book, the theme of this book being that God pursues us, that God shows us His Glory, that we have a Glory Ache, a longing for God to fill. God pursues us for He has been pursuing the human heart through the centuries, as Sharon reminds us. "The entire Bible from Genesis Three to Revelation 22:21 is a record of God's passionate pursuit of the human heart. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, a string of kings both good and bad, intermingled with prophets both wooing and warning God's people. We ended the last chapter of the Old Testament with silence. And then four hundred years later God breaks the Holy Hush with the Cry of a Babe in a manger as the story picks back up in Bethlehem."

The greatest Saints have always know they are pursued. Saints have always called us the Beloved, the Bride of Christ the Bridegroom. Spurgeon's best sermons, I think, are on the Song of Songs. A W Tozer knew how to pray that he would be pursued. Francis Thompson wrote The Hound Of Heaven, the poem about our flight from God, the relentless Pursuer.

This is Sharon's prayer, that we would know we are pursued by God and we would respond. Many women have come to Sharon and asked her how to feel closer to God. They all have one thing in common, they have a Glory Ache. They have a hollowness in them that they need filled, and God alone can fill it. They want God to reveal Himself to them. And these are not wrong desires.It is not wrong to desire to know that God is pursuing us, it is not wrong to ask God to overwhelm us with Himself. It is not wrong to ask Christ to bind us on His arm as a seal, as a seal on His Heart. And that is the Promise we have! We have the promise that we can abide in Him. Not just during Church and spiritual activities, but during all of life. Pray without ceasing, Give thanks in everything. Sing to one another with Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs. These are things to be done all day as we go about our days. All these commands in the New Testament can be summed up in one verse. In God we Live and Move and Have our Being.

Perhaps one of the reasons we do not feel God with us is that we have divided the Sacred from the Secular, forgetting that all work done to the Glory of God in noble and sacred. I love this Luther quote. "What you do in your House is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God.We should accustom our selves to think of our position and work as Sacred and well pleasing to God, not on account of the position or work, but on account of the Word and Faith from which the obedience and the work flow." When we Live and Move and have our Being in Christ, we have no secular days, for with Christ all is Sacred.

Perhaps part of the reason we feel far from God is that we are not looking for Him? God is pursuing His children, all day and every day. We are not seeing God's love and gifts in the beauty of sunlight shining over the wood kitchen floor. Of making soup. Of seeing bulbs sprout. Of the glow of Christmas lights. This is all part of Living and Moving and having our Being in God. When we live in Christ, we find God lavishing His glory on our life. We find God with us in suffering and trial as well as times of peace. That is when the Sudden Glory comes.

It is also worth thinking about how God speaks to us today. I do not believe that Christians are getting revelations from God, but I most certainly believe that God does reveal things to us through Scripture His perfect Word to His children, through circumstances- such as a loved one calling to give us a Scripture verse He had laid on their heart that very day, or a sparrow at our bird feeder that reminds us that a little sparrow cannot fall, unnoticed Lord by Thee, that is Sharon's perspective on this, when she says God speaks to us.

I am glad I read this book, there is much meat in it

Sharon Jaynes in her new book, "A Sudden Glory" published by Waterbrook Press shows us God's Lavish Response to Your Ache for Something More.

From the inside jacket flap: Do you long for something more in your relationship with God?

The good news is that "something more" does not mean "doing more." God is not waiting for you to get your spiritual life "right." He wants to be with you right where you are.

The real question is not "What does God want from you?" but "What does God want for you?"

Sharon Jaynes understands what it's like to have a "glory ache"–a longing to experience God's presence on a daily basis. She also knows how easily working for God can get in the way of intimacy with God. And she's discovered that we tend to make our faith journey much too hard.

In A Sudden Glory, Sharon uses Scripture and story to help you erase the line between your "spiritual life" and your "daily life" as you enter the sanctuary of God's presence even in the middle of your busy, messy day. Here you will find your eyes opened to moments of sudden glory in which the Creator assures you of His love as you live and move and have your being in Him. Here you will discover true freedom–the freedom of experiencing God in a deeper and more intimate way than ever before.

Includes Bible study and discussion guide.

There came a point where Moses couldn't stand it anymore and he cried out to God, "Show me your glory." Sharon Jaynes feels that we all have that deep need in us to see God's glory and she calls it the "glory ache", a persistent longing to experience God's presence on a daily basis. We sometimes try to find His glory by being busy, figuring that maybe God will be so happy with what we have done for Him that He will manifest Himself with His glory. However that is not the way God operates. Ms. Jaynes tells the story of the tightrope walker over Niagara Falls who wanted to really cement his reputation by walking with another person on his back across the rope. He told his partner, who was scared silly, that they must become one. When the tightrope walked swayed the other must sway, if they didn't move as one, if the other adjusted himself both were going into the Falls to their death. The disciples were in a boat in a terrible storm and went to Jesus fearing for their lives because He was asleep in the boat. What they forgot entirely was that He was in the boat with them and He was in charge. Ms. Jaynes gives us the ability to refocus on thinking so that we zero in more on Jesus and less on our circumstances. When we do that we find ourselves more alert to the presence of God and then we get to fill our "glory ache". Ms. Jaynes does a much better job in her book, "A Sudden Glory" then I ever will. I recommend reading this book and experiencing how to see the glory of God for yourself. You will be blessed. This is not a book that you will read once and then forget about it. It is a book that you will come back to again and again because we let ourselves get busy and we forget. Your family and friends would also benefit from receiving this book as a gift. They will read, be blessed, and thank you for thinking of them. I recommend this book highly!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Wake up. Start coffee. Get the kids up. Fix breakfast. See your husband off. Supervise teeth brushing, comb hair, and plant kisses. Load the van and bring the kids to school or see them off at the bus stop. Buy groceries. Pay bills. Drive to work and drive home. Do laundry. Cook dinner. Do Bible study. Answer emails. Pray and go to bed. Repeat.

And maybe, just maybe, you'll catch a glimpse of God today.

"A Sudden Glory" by Sharon Jaynes is one of the best and most moving books I've read in a long time. She shares her life struggles in teaching the reader how to see those special moments of God's touch in our everyday life. We all have "dry" times in our life, when God seems so far away. But really, He has not moved, we are just either not seeing clearly or we've moved.

The daily drag of life can sometimes weigh us down. More than that, it can blind us to God's glory. That's what Sharon Jaynes is writing about in this book--the reminder to be alert for God, to press in to Him and long for His presence.

Even when we're doing everything right, we can still miss out on the intimacy and elaborate grace God intends for us. We long for something more; maybe it's a need we can't even identify, but we still we feel it. So we DO what we are supposed to do. Yet, she writes: "Rather than ask God what he wants from us, we need to ask Him what He wants for us."

"A Sudden Glory" is a beautiful, inspiring, challenging, encouraging and very real book, perfect for the individual to read and for a group setting (study guide included). She shares out of her own personal pain, the times she was angry at God and the times when His plans weren't her own. This openness makes her writing even more compelling because life doesn't always go how any of us expect. Most of us have been there, crying, disappointed, upset with God, desperately hurting, and we need the testimony of someone who's walked through that and seen God glorified.

Sharon's style of writing is fabulous...very conversational - like sitting at the kitchen table with a special friend, chatting about the things of life while sipping on Lattes. Every page of the book contains rich nuggets that would make wonderful teaching moments or even to expand on and make into sermons.

Multiple messages have been spoken regarding this topic and those I've heard have been frustrating simplistic and superficial. My relationship with God is neither. Even those of us walking with Jesus so closely, though, will still feel a longing for more, a sense of incompleteness. It's not fair to the Christ-follower when pastors and teachers ignore that, giving pat answers, clichéd lessons, and leaving us all unsatisfied as to why we're still longing when we've done everything they've said.

The fact is that as long as we are on this side of heaven, we will never be truly filled. The closer we walk with God, the more satisfied we will be, but the more we will be reminded of the beauty of heaven when nothing will cloud our vision, when nothing remains hidden or unanswered. When we see Jesus face to face, that's when our deepest longings will truly be satisfied. Sharon Jaynes avoids all of the pitfalls of over-simplification here and gives us the hope of heaven.

She also gives us hope for the meantime while we wait here in this earthly place. Jesus came so that we could walk with God rather than be separated by this vast emptiness due to our sinfulness. We live in obedience, in worship, in gratitude, in communion with our God and He draws us close, giving us glimpses of heaven---glimpses of His glory. That's how He responds to our ache for something more and it's glorious.

Included in this book is a study guide for use with a small group or individually. I would highly recommend going through the study guide, not just to get the most from this book, but to go deeper in your understanding of Jesus and his love. That guide, in turn, will enhance and deepen your relationship with Him.

I'm part of a new church plant in Minnesota and this book will definitely be going into my personal library. It would be a great addition to our women's ministry material!