A Must-Read for Spiritual Nourishment and Challenge

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I had heard of Henri Nouwen several years ago, actually read about him in Christianity Today.  A friend encouraged me to read his work, and I recently picked up The Road to Daybreak at McKay’s Book in Chattanooga (a great place for booklovers to visit). 

Nouwen is shaking my world.  The short version:  Nouwen, a Catholic, was a scholar and academic.  In the mid-‘80s he chose to leave that world and enter service for the disabled at a L’Arche community in France.  Now that is what he does—takes care of a severely disabled man, believing that is his true call for following Jesus; this after a life of fame at Harvard and Yale. 

So I ask myself—could I walk away from anything that makes me seem important in my eyes and others and go into an obscurity of service for the sake of the Jesus and the gospel?  That has to be the ultimate question.  Many have done it; some we know about, mostly because of the level of fame they have attained before the radical obedience.   

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