Hearing God's Voice in the Struggles of Life - Book Review

Sometimes it seems like what God promises doesn’t quite line up with our own personal reality.  On the spiritual battleground, we expect attacks from Satan through people and circumstances.  But sometimes things can suddenly get crazy and flipped completely upside down, and our life’s dreams get crushed, stripping our faith bare to the point that we can’t make sense of what is happening and we find ourselves wrestling with God instead.  In Leighann McCoy’s book A Woman’s Guide to Hearing God’s Voice: Finding Direction and Peace through the Struggles of Life, she shows us how to take hold of Truth and refuse to let Him go.

God speaks most often through the Bible, and when He speaks to us in other ways, it never contradicts His Word.  Early in the book, Leighann McCoy gives us eight general rules of hearing His voice - ways that God speaks into our lives and hearts and what it takes for us to be able to hear and recognize Him speaking.  The remainder of the book is about how God communicates with us in the darkness, when it feels like God has failed us or left us or not kept His promise.  

The book is divided into four parts.  In the first part, she shares how Jacob’s journey and Abraham’s disappointments led them to wrestle with God, and the tremendous blessing that resulted.  In the second part, she addresses the question “where was God when…” and shows the answer through familiar stories like Joseph in the pit and the disciples in the storm.  In the third part about letting God define what is good, she shares stories of women she knows who grew in life’s disappointments, crises, and tragedies. She ends the book with how to live in expectation of the new thing God is doing in your life.  She even shows how to tell your life story so you can minister to others.

Leighann McCoy writes both as if she were your close friend but with authority, godly and wise insight, and biblically sound theology.  She shares her own personal stories of disappointments through her daughter’s life choices as well as her own struggles with cancer, and how through the darkness and craziness, God revealed much more of His power and love.  She gives a fresh perspective to familiar Bible stories, especially the intimacy that Jacob encounters in his wrestling with God and how God is honored when we wrestle with Him through prayer.

Embrace the opportunity God gave you to pull back the curtain on the stage of your life and let God reveal Himself to those watching you, because they long to see God as He truly is, perfect in love and powerful in presence (page 15). If I can remember to live this, then I would like to think that I am willing to let God define ‘good’ for my life, whatever it may be, to accomplish this purpose.

I absolutely LOVED this book! I highly recommend it to every woman who wants to hear the voice of God in her life, whether or not she finds herself in a desert season of darkness.

I was provided a complimentary copy of this book from Bethany House in exchange for my honest review.