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Five books that shaped my
life
by
Captain Genevieve Peterson
The Holy
Bible, God: Ok, this is a given…but it did shape my
life! I became a Christian when I was eighteen and I just
couldn’t get enough of the Gospels. I felt like Jesus was
sitting with me in my little caravan (that was my bedroom in
our backyard…big family) and personally teaching me all I had
missed in my life. I was transformed a little more each time I
read.
satan Seller, Mike Warnke? I do not recommend
anyone read this book! It was given to me by a youth leader as
I had spoken to him of my brief history with the occult prior
to becoming a Christian. To this day I do not know what he was
thinking and have a giggle about it from time to time. It is
basically about a guy who gets caught up in the satanic church
and then converts to Christianity. Good story of
victory…however ¾ of the book is filled with hideous recounts
of satanic practice and consequences of disobedience to satan.
From my little caravan I would read this book, too scared to
turn the pages, and then pray desperately that Jesus really
would protect me. I think I slept with the light on, clinging
to my Bible for three weeks before I started to feel safe! But
because of this experience, I certainly have taken spiritual
warfare more seriously which has been invaluable in my
shaping. This was further encouraged later in life by
‘Intercessory Prayer’ which totally changed my strategy but
which has been named many times by others as a favourite book,
and I don’t want Dutch to lose his humility by naming it once
more.
A Cry in the Wilderness, Keith Green: Ah Keith,
one of my heroes. This book basically gives a chapter by
chapter run down of what you need to know in order to be a
disciple. It is simple, but very firm and for a new Christian,
it was exactly what I needed to shape me. It is filled with
classic Keith quotes like “the Holy Spirit doesn’t want the
flesh for a room mate” and “God, why not teach me how to be a
gracious and humble rich person instead?” and “prayer is the
gas in our gas tank.” I don’t want to overstate it, but this
book is possibly the most radical and hard core book I have
ever read! I highly recommend this book to new Christians and
tragically it tends to be received more positively than his
music!
I’ll fight, Phil Wall: This was the first Salvo
book I read and gave me a taste of the real Army. I was
pumped! Till this point, I really had no idea of the extreme
and militant nature of our early days and while I was aware of
a calling to the poor, I had no idea it extended into a
complete life of sacrifice and covenant of its soldiers. It
certainly confirmed the calling I had to serve within The
Salvation Army and led to me read a bunch of other books that
have pushed me further and further into the type of life I
hope resembles the warriors of our beginnings.
He chose the nails, Max Lucado: This book
strongly impacted my life, not so much for its content but
more for its application. It so clearly articulated the
sacrifice Jesus made on the cross that I found it to be a
great evangelism tool. I gave it to one young girl a centre I
was working in, and we discussed a few chapters over her stay.
After a couple of days off, I came on for my night shift, and
I went to find her to check on her progress. Not in her room
or anywhere else I could see I began to grow concerned. I did
find her eventually. She was hanging from the back of a toilet
door. We managed to revive her, but it occurred to me
afterward just how broken and hurting this world really was.
This I would say was a catalyst for my journey toward
Officership, though I surely didn’t know it at the time. While
on the one hand, I wanted to run away and hide from the people
who could cause me such sorrow and disappointment, the deeper
part of me realized it was going to be my life work. So I
guess you could say that this book was my first attempt to do
ministry to ‘real’ people and led to an attempted suicide,
however I prefer to see it as a symbol of my journey away from
the protection of middle-class ministry and into the minefield
of mission to the poor.
You are Special, Max Lucado …again!: It’s such a
simple children’s book that tells the story of sad and lonely
boy who discovers he has been made and is loved by his Maker.
I have used this book countless times and find that it is the
easiest way to introduce children to God. Many of the children
I work with fail to see any purpose in life, and cannot
compute the concept of a God who loves them. They don’t know
love and they don’t know God. And yet after this story, they
begin to see the possibility of fullness and hope, and are
open to finding out more about their maker. It’s an invaluable
tool and I highly recommend you use it to grow your children’s
work.
Well, most of those books came early in my Christian journey.
I promise I have read other books since then! But these are
the books that started the shaping…
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