Intimacy with The Almighty: A Personal Journey

Resource Description

Full Review:

Are you looking for a book to deepen your walk with the Lord? Would you like a short study on the Christian life to give to a new convert? Intimacy with the Almighty by Pastor Chuck Swindoll may be what you are looking for. It is biblical and practical, covering four spiritual disciplines to assist the believer in cultivating closeness with God.

The four chapters are entitled:

1. Enjoying Intimacy with the Almighty
2. Simplicity: Reordering our Lives
3. Silence and Solitude: Essentials for Intimacy
4. Surrender: Intimacy Requires Letting Go

Each chapter has devotional thoughts based on Scripture and an important section at the end called “Moving toward Intimacy” with questions, as well as spaces to write thoughts and applications of what is learned.

In addition

In addition, there is a select list of “Books for Probing Further” at the very end of the book. This well-chosen bibliography on the Christian life includes many of my favorite authors: Packer, Piper, Sproul, Edwards, Tozer, Eareckson-Tada, Whitney, Petersen, and Pink.

Swindoll’s easy-to-read devotional style and the brevity of the book, only 31 pages, make it especially inviting to give to a new believer who is not a big reader. It comes in other formats as well, including CD.

Becoming closer to the Almighty should be a lifelong quest for all, including those of us in ministry.

I want to conclude this review by sharing Swindoll’s brief introduction:

“Nobody around me knows this,” confided the pastor, “but I’m operating on fumes. I am lonely, hollow, shallow, and enslaved to a schedule that never lets up.” As I embraced him and affirmed his vulnerability and honesty, he began to weep with deep, heaving sobs. We prayed before he slipped back into the crowd.

Later, as I reflected on that dear man’s struggle, I began to think about why we all feel frayed and frustrated at times on our spiritual journey. The core issue, I’m convinced, is one of the intimacy with God.

We can have involvements, activities, and programs aplenty. But if we lack intimacy with the Almighty, life becomes a blur without purpose or direction.

That’s why I presented this series. It contains some of my deepest thoughts about how to draw close – and stay close – to our heavenly Father. It’s not really a study guide; it’s more like a personal journey. So as you walk through it, think, pray, reflect, and write. And turn life’s hardest roads into life’s greatest adventure.

HG