Dangerous Surrender: What Happens When You Say Yes To God
Kay Warren, Dangerous Surrender: What Happens When You Say Yes To God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 255 pages, ISBN 0310258901.
Kay Warren is the wife of pastor and author Rick Warren. This book may never sell as many copies as her husband’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, but it is most certainly a very significant book. I confess that I am not a person who reads for pleasure, that is, I do not read to relax or because I enjoy the practice of reading, but I could not put this book down. The author’s brutal honesty about her fears, sense of inadequacy, questions and struggles makes this book quite compelling. Warren writes things that many of us think, but would probably never say out loud.
On the inside flap of the front cover of the book it says, “You have a plan for the rest of your life. God has a plan for the rest of your life. Are they the same?” That is a thought-provoking question and it sets the stage for the rest of the book. Kay Warren is the wife of a very successful pastor. She thought that she and her husband would probably spend their later years traveling around the world encouraging ministry couples, but God had other plans.
In 2002, through a magazine article, she became aware of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. God gripped her heart with the statistics and the photos. After reading that article she began to notice information about AIDS everywhere. She felt that God wanted her to do something about it, but she did not know what. She said to God, “Why are you bothering me with this? There is nothing I can do about it. I’m just an ordinary person.” She agonized over this for a month. She then came to the place of decision; could she go back into her comfortable life and pretend that the AIDS epidemic was not happening? She could not; she said “yes” to the call of God. When she did this she said that her heart was broken and that she was shattered. This set her on the course of becoming an activist raising awareness of HIV/AIDS.
Category: Fall 2008, Living the Faith
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