ALWAYS BE READY DELIGHTS. I heard Hugh Ross being interviewed on Christian radio. I thought it interesting so I decided to order his book. That’s the first I heard of Hugh Ross and the RTB (Reasons To Believe) ministry. Wow. He shared his unusual journey to faith. He came to faith through reading a bible. The bible was from the Gideon organization. He didn’t read it for several years. At age eighteen, as an avid scientist with atheistic parents, he was on a personal search to find what could explain the complexity of the natural world. He saw holes and incomplete explanations in the research, yet he was certain there had to be a credible reason for its complexity. When he read Genesis 1, he found what he was looking for. To him it read like a scientific process. In a short matter of time he professed Christ as his Savior and wrote his name with the date on the bible’s decision page. However, he didn’t know any Christians until six years later. Hugh Ross’s mission is to help Christians prepare to share their faith with a world that is hostile but curious. He wants secular people to know that science and Christianity are not on opposite sides, they actually compliment each other. He is a pastor, debater, sharer of his faith, writer, and scientist. He is also autistic. I find this thread quite interesting. His autism has not kept him from sharing his brilliance. If anything, it has enhanced it. A good read.

Mez McConnell’s childhood story is that of severe deprivation, abuse, and mistreatment. His abuser(s) enjoyed hurting him and his sister in the cruelest of ways. He spent his early years in an impossible situation where each day of life was lived in fear of ‘her’ and the starvations and various abuses she meted out with relish and regularity. He prayed to God to save him from these but couldn’t tell that God even cared. He learned to ‘take it’ without complaint as he nurtured an inner rebellious defiance against the satisfaction she would gain through the pleasure of administering abuse. Years later, after McConnell’s own inner torment was well into self-destructive mode, he began to explore the possibility of there being a God, and, secondary to that, why a just God would have allowed such horrific abuse to occur. He eventually realizes that Christ suffered and died for people who hated Him. He begins to understand the bigger picture of Christ’s love to the world of scarred humankind. This book is an uncomfortable read but it is also the encouraging story of a redeemable human being. McConnell shares insights about the theology of God in offering His caring, loving, and redemptive hope to all, especially to those wounded by life.