It’s all free. That’s why I’m thrilled to tell you that my 6-day devotional is available on YouVersion now!

It’s called Jesus Revives Hope in Disappointed People, and it’s based on scripture and stories from Remarkable Hope. If you already have the app on your phone, this devotional is already in your pocket or purse!

It’s for anyone who feels shocked at the way God has allowed circumstances to work out. It’s tempting to wonder if you’ve done something wrong, or worse, been duped. Hope seems slippery. But what if the hope Christ offers isn’t a flimsy shred but a certainty you can count on, even when you feel disappointed? For six days we’ll get a glimpse of what biblical hope is, and how Jesus revived hope for people in the gospels. We’ll be assured he’ll do the same for us today.

[bctt tweet=”Find your 6-day reading plan at @YouVersion Bible App based on excerpts from #RemarkableHope by” username=”shaunaletellier”]

The YouVersion Bible App makes it easy to share the plan with friends. If you’re encouraged, please share the plan and the book with anyone who needs the anchor of hope we have in Christ.

Get started HERE!

Buy Remarkable Hope at any online retailer!

The post A Free 6-Day Devotional: Jesus Revives Hope appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

Intimate Moments with the Savior: Learning to Love by Ken Gire has been a favorite. If you’ve never read it, you might want to join the 100,000+ people who have. It is beautifully written and timeless.

Life is a kitchenful of preparations that has a tendency to distract the Martha in all of us. It is the purpose of this book to help bring us out of the kitchen for a few minutes to sit, with Mary, at the Savior’s feet.

For there the words of Jesus wait so patiently to enter our hearts. There, in his presence, we learn to listen. There we learn to look into his eyes. And there we learn to love him. (p. XIII)

He’s right.

I also learned to empathize with the people who interacted with Jesus.

Gire writes about the hemorrhaging woman, “…with a thin thread of faith, this frail needle of a woman, stitches her way through the crowd.” His simple and picturesque sentence helped me see the anemic woman ducking through the crowd and then straining on tiptoe, peering ahead, to make sure she hasn’t lost sight of Jesus.

It’s easier to empathize with an ill and desperate woman than to feel compassion for a scowling swindler in first-century Jericho. But as I read Gire’s reflection on what might have been Zacchaeus’ backstory, my heart broke with the trampled boy inside the striving man clawing at bark and branches to catch a glimpse of Jesus. It stirred empathy for Zacchaeus, compassion for people who remind me of him, and love for Jesus who notices someone everyone else has tried to forget.

For tax gatherers are despised as ruthless bill collectors for a corrupt government. Even the Talmud looks down on them, allowing a Jew the sanction of lying to a murderer, to a thief, and…to a tax collector.

True, Zacchaeus has power. And he has wealth. But the stature he sought among the others has eluded him. And so has friendship.

But Zacchaeus has heard stories about this Jesus who was a friend of tax collectors. Who ate and drank with them and stayed in their homes. Who changed the life of Levi, the tax collector at Capernaum. For whom Levi left a lucrative career, left everything. And not for higher wages, but for no wages at all. This Jesus must be some man. There’s even talk of him being the Messiah. The thought captivates Zacchaeus: A Messiah who’s a friend of tax collectors. And with a schoolboy’s eagerness he shinnies up the sycamore to see him.

{Taken from Intimate Moments with the Savior: Learning to Love by Ken Gire Copyright © 1989 by Ken Gire. pp. 73-75. Use by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com}

Gire’s book taught me that people in the gospels were not mere characters of ancient fiction. They were humans whose stories have been remembered through centuries because of the historical record of Scripture.

With seventeen short chapters, Intimate Moments with the Savior is perfect devotional reading for a few weeks this summer. If you’re headed for a road-trip or vacation, this book would be a gentle companion for morning and evening readings.

As promised, I’m giving away a SIGNED copy!

Email me at shauna@shaunaletellier.com and let me know which Bible character or story has had the greatest impact on your walk with Jesus. Your email and answer is your entry. I’ll contact the winner via email on Friday, August 10th!! Follow on Instagram and Facebook to find out who won!!

Psssst: Since there can only be one winner, you can also purchase a copy here. The entire first chapter is excerpted when you click  “look inside” on Amazon!!

{As usual, all links to books on Amazon are affiliate links, which means Amazon pays me a few cents for telling you about such a great book, but you won’t be charged a penny extra!}

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That’s how I discovered, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith by Jon Bloom.

“Through the imaginative retelling of 35 Bible stories, Not by Sight gives us glimpses of what it means to walk by faith…” When I read the description, I panicked. Pretty sure I cried. Because I’d been thinking about writing Remarkable Faith for several years and when the description sounded so similar, I worried there was no need for my book. Perhaps I was too late.

I read the whole book and discovered that while there were similarities, on the whole, they were distinct. Thankfully, publishers want to know about “comparable books” when they are considering publishing yours. Just like a real estate agent will provide you with a list of comparable houses recently sold in your neighborhood, a publisher wants a list of books recently sold in your genre. So what felt like disappointment initially, turned out to be a gift. I had a comparable book proving there was indeed a desire for a book like mine.

I’ve chosen an excerpt in which Bloom imagines Zacchaeus making good on a promise: “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” (Luke 19:8 NIV)

Imagine a father and son inside a first-century home when an unwelcome visitor arrives. Bloom even catches our attention with a provocative chapter title.

Dismembering an Idol

“Dad, there’s a man at the door. He said his name is Zacchaeus.”

“Zacchaeus!” Judah’s face flushed with sudden anger. “What does he want?” Under h es breath he muttered, “The little vermin.” His young daughter didn’t need to hear that.

“I don’t know.”

Judah moved brusquely past his daughter, clenching his jaw. If the little weasel even hints at more money, I swear… a thunderstorm of violent thoughts broke in his mind.

When he saw Zacchaeus, he exploded, “WHAT?” Zacchaeus reeled slightly from the verbal blow.
“I’m here to return something to you, Judah.”

“What do you mean?” The tone sounded more like, “Get out of my sight!”

Zacchaeus held out a small moneybag. Judah was suspiciously confused. This man had robbed half of Jericho collecting taxes for Tiberius. No one was more conniving and slippery with words. Fearing some kind of setup, Judah didn’t move.

“What are you doing, Zacchaeus?” Cynicism hissed through Judah’s teeth.

“I’m dismembering my idol.”

Judah’s fiery glare turned to stony bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”

“Judah, I know how strange this must sound. And you have every reason not to trust me. I’m here because I’ve defrauded you. I’ve charged you more taxes than Rom required and kept them for my wicked little self. I know that you and everyone else knows that. But now I’ve come to ask your forgiveness for sinning against you like that, and to make restitution. That’s what’s in this bag.”

Zacchaeus held it out again. This time Judah tentatively took it. He looked inside. “There’s a lot in here. It’s got to be more than you overcharged me.”

“Yes. It’s four times what I overcharged you. I’ve got all the records, you now. Zacchaeus smiled.

“Why are you giving me four times what you owe me?” Judah’s distrust was not dispelled.

“I’m keeping a vow. I promised Jesus that I would repay everyone I defrauded fourfold.”

“You mean Rabbi Jesus? You know him?

“I do now….”

(Taken from Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith, by Jon Bloom, ©2013, pp. 43-44. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.)

I love his practical rendering of what it might have looked like for Zacchaeus to do the unthinkable. Think of the logistics–sifting through records, calculating, filling bags with currency destined for a particular taxpayer, and finally the delivery and explanation. In the tax booths of Jericho, his unforgettable act of restitution was long remembered and discussed. And so was the Savior he honored.

I’m giving away a copy of Not by Sight later this week. Look for a reminder on my Facebook page and giveaway details on Instagram in the next few days!

The post Not by Sight appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

“Keep track of books I read.” It was a change of strategy regarding resolutions which you can read about here, and it worked for me.

This year, two books stood out as all-time-favorite material. And you don’t have to take my word for it. They each have more than 16,000 reviews on Amazon.

The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown and All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr were my uncontested favorites.**

But besides reading, I kept track of a few other things that didn’t appear on any list of resolutions.

Metaphorically speaking, 2015 was the year of my Shark Tank episode.In other words, I wrote a book proposal.

To be accurate, it took me about three years to write a bunch of coherent pages of a book “idea.” In doing so I’ve discovered the book publishing industry is strikingly similar to the show Shark Tank. In case you haven’t seen it, here is the gist:Enthusiastic entrepreneur-contestants have the opportunity to solicit funds from six venture capitalists—also known as “the sharks.” The contestants create a prototype, make a business plan, summarize it all in a creative way to “pitch” to the sharks. If, the sharks like the person, the product and the potential, they make a deal. They invest loads of money in the business idea in exchange for a stake in the company.

It’s the same in the publishing industry. With the slight difference in vocabulary and the fact that it isn’t televised.

In publishing the writer is the creator-contestant. The prototype is in the form of three sample chapters of a book. The business plan is called a proposal, and the sharks are publishing houses.

On Shark Tank, some of the entrepreneurs have a partner who has helped them develop their product and pitch the idea to interested parties. In publishing, this person is a literary agent, (the agent functions like a real estate agent. You have something to offer, an agent has people in mind who need or want what you’re offering.) Together you make your pitch to the publishers through your proposal.

Publishers, review your sample chapters and business plan to see if you can string together interesting sentences or ideas readers would want. If a publisher wants to invest in you and your book, it’s called a book contract.

At this time last year, I put the finishing touches on my prototype/sample chapters. I wrote a business plan/proposal. Then, after signing with a witty, savvy, and kind literary agent, we made our pitch to the sharks–er… I mean publishers.

We are now at a commercial break, so to speak. We’re standing in front of the sharks, searching their faces (or emails) for interest or enthusiasm, waiting for an offer.

And when I review it all like that, I can see why those things didn’t exactly appear on a list of resolutions. I would have collapsed under the pressure of all I had resolved to do! Finish proposal, write chapters, find agent, submit proposal, pray like mad…hyperventilate.

Yet looking back, those things are exactly what the Lord allowed to happen, one baby step–one sentence, one paragraph, one email, one prayer–at a time.

Has God invited you to do something hard this year? Do you have a dream that seems too big? A goal that seems too distant? Can I encourage you to walk toward it one baby step at a time?

 Today, talk to God about it.

Tomorrow, research it for 15 minutes.

The next day, tell a friend.And next January, let’s just see what God has taught us. Maybe there won’t be a finished product, or a contract, or even measurable results. But we will have tried something hard, done something new, and learned a whole lot in the process.

We will likely fail in some respect, but God has not asked us to be “successful.” He has called us to lean on Him and be faithful.

Oswald Chambers wrote, “The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us.”

May 2016 find us faithful even in—especially in—the little things, so that God is free to accomplish whatever He pleases in us and through us this year.

**I also read:
The Giver, Lowis Lowry
The Hardest Peace, Kara Tippetts
Good News for Weary Women, Elyse Fitzpatrick
Hinds Feet on High Places (children’s version), Hannah Hurnard
Christ the Lord, Ann Rice
One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp
When I lay My Isaac Down, Carol Kent
For the Love, Jen Hatmaker
On Writing Well, William Zinsser
The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
Lila, Marilynne Robinson

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