Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Lioness Arising, by Lisa Bevere

I’ll be honest; this book had been on a list of potential book reviews for awhile. I never chose to review it because the title, “Lioness Arising,” just sounded like such a cheesy title. I still feel that way. Even the women on the back of the book that endorsed it did not make me want to read this book. But what caught my attention on the back cover was, “God did not save you to tame you.” My current stage in life allows me to meet with several college students and occasionally I come across girls that feel as Christian females they are to be doormats--doormats for their future husbands, doormats for their roommates, and even doormats for their church.


Lisa Bevere’s, “Lioness Arising,” starts off with her awakening while raising children and wondering if there was more for her and the comparison of the lioness begins. In chapter one she states, “I would just smile, content that I was no longer a frightened, timid, domestic cat.” Later on in chapter one you almost get on board with the lioness comparison when she says, “More than any other creature, the lioness makes me proud to be a female. There is no doubting her strength. I also imagine there is no creature that makes a man prouder to be a male than the lion. The lion is the king of the jungle, and there is no question about who is the queen.”

Chapter three is where Bevere addresses the reason I chose to review the book in the first place. Referring to Luke 4:18-19 she states, “ If the Spirit of God was placed on Jesus to do all these things, and if we are born of this same Spirit, then we are to do as he did—preach the good news to the poor, set the burdened and battered free… In light of this charge, God does not need a band of domesticated daughters who spend their days baking and behaving well.” Then she goes on to give biblical examples of women God chose to change history, Deborah, Jael, Tamar, Esther, etc.

Bevere concludes her book a reminder that the lion we are following is Jesus. We are not to fear our future because the author of life is leading us. The last chapter begins appropriately with a quote by Winston Churchill, “I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar.”

Thanks to Blogging for Books for a complementary copy of this book for reviewing purposes.

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