We Would See Jesus--Book Review

We Would See Jesus by Roy Hession

My Goodreads.com review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a solid little devotional book, very helpful to me in thinking about why focusing on Jesus is the beginning, middle and end of what we need and do as his disciples. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a solid conception of the "dark night of the soul," because this book would leave you with the impression that if you're experiencing dryness or darkness, you must simply repent and look to Jesus, perhaps praying more, and all will be restored. Actually, many have found that Jesus seems to be absent or distant despite all repenting and praying, even for a long season. Later, they look back and see he was doing a much deeper work in their soul and had to let them experience that desolation. Roy and Revel Hession wrote in the mid-twentieth century, when that idea was almost completely lost to the Protestant world.

This book was worth the read for its many gems, including:

"To concentrate on service and activity for God may often actively thwart our attaining of the true goal, God himself. At first sight it seems heroic to fling our lives away in the service of God and of our fellows. . . . Service seems so unselfish, whereas concentrating on our walk with him seems so selfish and self-centered. But it is the very reverse. The things that God is most concerned about are our coldness of heart towards himself and our proud, unbroken natures. Christian service of itself can, and so often does, leave our self-centered nature untouched. [Now listen to this!] That is why there is scarcely a church, a mission station, or a committee undertaking a special piece of service, that is without an unresolved problem of personal relationships eating out its hear and thwarting its progress. . . . In this condition we are trying to give to others an answer which we have not truly and deeply found for ourselves" (pp. 14-15).

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