A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

I love books, so I thought I would try my hand at writing book reviews. A Year with God: Daily Readings and Reflections on God’s Own Words is a daily devotional with 365 entries. Each entry begins with an Old Testament passage followed by an application of that passage to the Christian today. The purpose of this book is to, over the course of a year, make His thoughts your thoughts.

The book is organized into sections intended to address various topics including: Hope and Fear, Love and Hate, Perseverance and Quitting, Faith and Doubt, Loyalty and Betrayal, Companionship and Isolation, Mercy and Judgment, Forgiveness and Anger, Joy and Sadness, Peace and Conflict.

Many Christians seldom read the Old Testament, though there is a wealth of knowledge about the character of God revealed in His Words there. A Year with God is an excellent book to help Christians understand who God is and what kind of relationship He wants to have with His people. The author has selected a wonderfully representative sample of passages from Genesis to Obadiah, and the devotional piece is generally clear and well-written.

I haven’t read the whole book, but did review a representative sampling under several topics. I enjoyed each devotional, but had a hard time figuring out how each one fit under its assigned topic. Although it appears to provide the book with structure, I’m not sure the breakdown by topic was truly helpful. I also think it would have benefited from a table of Bible passages and an index, but that might just be my preference for back matter in any non-fiction book.

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