Wednesday, April 18, 2012

David Gregory's Night with a Perfect Stranger ~ Reviewed

By David Gregory
Published by Worthy Publishing
ISBN#978-1-936034-86-4
132 Pages

Back Cover:  

Six years ago, businessman Nick Cominsky encountered Jesus the old-fashioned way-in a face-to-face meeting. And the Christian life seemed a breeze . . . for a while. But now, having done everything he knows to grow spiritually, he wonders where his closeness with Jesus has gone. Burned out and hopeless, Nicks wails his complaints to God during a late-night interstate trip. Then suddenly he runs out of gas-and finds Jesus along the roadside with a gas can. Jesus hops in the truck and offers answers Nick never heard in church . . . and a nighttime of adventures ensues beyond anything Nick could have imagined.

Review: 

I was thrilled to learn David Gregory had a new book out and I received a review copy of it in the mail. This authors’ books are small (132 pages) but pack a powerful punch in so many areas. His books can be read in a day and re-read as you share parts of them with friends and family for months to come.

In his first book Dinner with a Perfect Stranger a man receives an invitation to dine with Jesus. Nick thinks this is a practical joke so he goes to claim his free dinner. During the course of the meal he discovers that the guy across from him is actually Jesus. This book was fun, funny, and a great witnessing tool. Nick wants answers to Christianity and life. Jesus calmly answers Nick’s questions. The encounter transforms his life! He can’t stop talking about his meeting Jesus to anyone that will listen.

The next book in the series was called A Day with a Perfect Stranger, Nick’s wife Mattie goes on a business trip. She’s thankful to be out of the house and away from her husband’s talk about Jesus. She couldn’t take one more day of listening to Nick talk about his dinner with Jesus, it had been three weeks non-stop.  Enough already.  Mattie is thankful to be on a plane and away from any talk of Jesus.

As the flight goes on she talks with the person sitting next to her. This man is different and things start to sound familiar. Soon, Mattie realizes that she’s sitting next to Jesus. So much for running away from the Jesus talk – she runs right into Jesus himself. Mattie confronts Him about the rules laid down to follow in the Christian life, She wants to know exactly what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus?

Now starts David Gregory’s new book Night with a Perfect Stranger.  This book opens up by bringing the reader up to speed just like I did about the first two encounters. Six years have passed and life isn’t as easy or filled with Joy like it used to be. Life had made so much sense after encountering Jesus. Nick says to himself, “I slowly lost it, whatever “it” was. My closeness to God, my excitement about Jesus, the sense of purpose and meaning He brought. I’m not sure when it started fading. I hadn’t lost my faith. Far from it. But the life that faith was supposed to produce – where was it? I thought meeting Jesus would energize me for a life time. But for the past 4 years I’d been slowly coasting downhill.”

David Gregory hits another home run with his new book. It’s just as fun, funny,  insightful,  and unique. What I’ve loved about all of these authors’ books is the way he shares concepts about the Christian life in a simple way.  For instance, he explains through Jesus to Nick about God being love. I got a kick out of this.

Jesus asks Nick about the ocean, He asks “did you go swimming?”

“Sure”

“How much wet did it have?”

“The whole thing was wet – it was the ocean.”

“Exactly.” Jesus looked at me, “Nick, we are like the ocean. The ocean doesn’t have wet – it is wet. You jump in, you get wet. God doesn’t have love – we are love! Our love isn’t a possession. We can’t give it away as a reward to those good enough to earn it. Love is simply who we are. We love you because of who we are….nothing you do can change that.. God is love.”

Wow, I love how he explained that concept. Simple and profound. This is just one of the many jewels inside the treasure box of David Gregory’s new book. The concept of Gods love for me hit me deep; do I really grasp this for my own life? I read this book in several hours. You’ll be re-reading all the parts you marked in your book to friends and family for days. You’ll never for get these books, two of them have been made into movies that stay faithful to the books. I highly recommend Night with a Perfect Stranger and all the other books this author’s written.

Reviewed by: Nora St.Laurent

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