More Than Ordinary by Doug Sherman

Using anecdotes of the author's own family life with his children, In his book, More Than Ordinary, Doug Sherman illustrates the potential Father- child relationship that Christians often cheat themselves out of when they fail to recognise God's presence in their daily lives.  This book brings out an important point, that God desires a relationship with us, not unlike the parent child relationships that we are familiar with. Written with child-like enthusiasm, the author draws examples and stories from his own life to illustrate the relationship of God with his children.   Yet unlike our dysfunctional, and deficient human relationships, God's motives are pure and His love for us is infinate. 

Nevertheless, it gets a bit tiresome when the author  uses his own father- child anecdotes to illustrate God's love for us as a perfect parents throughout the book.  Sure it is nice that he has a good relationship with his kids, to make up for the less than perfect, rocky relationship he had with his own dad when he was young, but it simply seems like that author is giving himself a big pat on the back at times- especially  when he describes his camping trips, coaching sports and the joy he gets from interacting with his kids after a long day at the office.  Its nice that he felt that seeing his "kids win was better than winning myself" page 51, and that the author is a self described example of a "godly parent" which defined in his words means "one of the greatest desires of godly parents is to enjoy the affection, appreciation, and devotion of their children. God feels the same way.  My passion is to love my children well and bring them joy." page 51.  Sure it is true that this is a good analogy for the pleasure God sees in us, his children, but nevertheless I did not want to read a bunch of feel good stories as the author pats himself on the back for being a good and loving parent. 

This book was motivating and empowering in the sense that it used real life illustrations and parelles of ahealthy ideal father child relationship, with that of our relationship with God.  Nevertheless, I am sure there are a number or readers, who may be parents wthemselves, who do not have the time, financial means or emotional energy to be the type of parent that Doug Sherman describes himself to be in his anecdotes.  As a blogger for Navpress I recieved this book, published by Navpress for the purpose of writing this review.  The opinions expressed are my own.