Book Review: Finding My Heavenly Father

Written by Jeff Reuter
Reviewed by Donald James Parker –

Does a book have to be extremely well written to be of worth? I think not. I would not classify this work as a masterpiece of extraordinary quality. In fact the prose displayed is much closer to average, run of the mill, and mediocre. It was not written to provide the readers with exercise in mental and lingual gymnastics and help stave off diminution in mental prowess. It was not penned with the goal of bringing shock and awe to your reading experience. You won’t need your thesaurus or dictionary to probe into the meaning of multisyllabic words. The author intended it to be a reflection of himself, down to earth and unpretentious, a prophet called to deliver a message of substance without any hype. How appropriate that I penned, well keyboarded, these words on Christmas Eve, the night we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus in a humble stable to two very down-to-earth parents.  God has a way of using the little things and little people in life.

This first person non-fiction narrative tackles a fairly complex message and reduces it to simple language to help people grasp the concept that God is alive and working through His people. The journey of the author is a beautiful demonstration of how a life yielded to the Savior pays rich dividends, not necessarily financial, but always in the area of character and true contentment. The author could have ended up like many of his friends, living a life seeking pleasure and creature comforts and enjoying stunted growth as a child of the King. God must have planted a seed of dissatisfaction in his soul long ago. Nothing that he did brought him lasting joy-until he encountered his heavenly father. That dissatisfaction was like a grain of sand inside an oyster. The irritation of that sand produced a beautiful pearl of great price.

The trek started out with an earthly father who needed to enroll in Remedial Fatherhood 101. That class would have been filled by men of the World War II generation who seemed to lack the ability to demonstrate love. As a result, a whole generation of sons and daughters grew up with a sketchy concept of a loving Heavenly Father. Ironically Jeff had been a disciple of Jesus Christ for many years before he discovered the Father’s love. Playing church, even as an active participant in the roles of Sunday School teacher and pastor had not filled him with satisfaction. His heart ached for something more. He found that he had a God-sized hole that only God could fill. And after that he discovered a God of power and might that not only loves His children, but blesses them richly when they come to Him in faith. The Bible says that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. This is Jeff Reuter’s witnessing of the great work done in his life by a loving Creator. This is material that can help others overcome as well.

We as humans seem to always be on a journey of discovering. We’re always trying to find a spouse, a job, the perfect house; you fill in the blank here. Some of us are always trying to find a good movie to watch or a book to read. I truly believe that as Christians the excellence of either is directly proportionate to the closeness it brings us to our Creator and how it teaches us to follow the commandments that have been etched in stone, and hopefully in our hearts.  Perhaps reading about Jeff’s journey will inspire you to take a higher path and to elevate your search for meaningfulness beyond typical human trivial pursuits. I recommend this book for that reason. Just don’t compare the verbiage with Shakespeare.