Shaped by the Spirit: Being Formed into an Outward-Focused People, by Kate Pocklington. SPCK, 2024. 192 pages.
“A while ago I ordered some floating shelves for my kitchen. I found a guy on the internet who had made a hobby into a small business. He takes old, gnarled planks of timber, marked with stories of a past life, and reclaims them. With circular saw and smoothing planes, measures and squares, chisel and level, sandpaper, stain and oil, he takes the old and reshapes it, imagining something other, something new. I love those shelves. Every time I place something on them or take something from them, they bring me joy. Beauty from the old, the ugly, the no longer useful. Recycled, reformed, transformed.
“God has an exceptional way of doing the same thing with us. …He takes each of us—with our own stories, influences, and shaped by our own histories—and, if we let him, he reforms us.”
Maybe, like me, you could use a chance to pull back and explore the things God uses to shape us for his mission in the world (family background, relationships, pain, gifts, culture, and more). This beautifully written and reflective book will help.
Turns out, it’s not all about us.
Learn more or purchase in paperback from Amazon (or elsewhere) for US$14.99. Also available in a Kindle edition.
You might also be interested in a brief article, Rest in God’s Care (Soul Shepherding Institute, via Missio Nexus).