One of the lovely ladies with whom I have become acquainted on Facebook is Stephanie Shott. She has recently released a Bible study entitled 'Ecclesiastes: Understanding What Matters (Following God Through the Bible Series).

Here is her rather unconventional autobiography from her website:

ME, IN A NUTSHELL...

I know this is where you generally find the typical bio, but I thought it would be fun to share the 4-1-1 on the “personal” me...

Me - Often goofy, never perfect, love to laugh (especially at myself). Passionate about Jesus, passionate about being passionate. Not a girly girl, but secretly want to be. Just learning to accessorize, don’t know my colors, hate to shop, have a love/hate relationship with menopause, love missions, hate to fly, trying to find someone to nominate me for “What Not to Wear.”

Family - I’m married to my best friend who thinks he’s funnier than I am. More talented, yes...funnier, no way. He’s a drummer, a surfer and a man of God who is absolutely passionate about reaching this generation for Christ. I’m blessed to be “mom” to two young men who are as different as night and day. Karl (my oldest) is Mr. Sports. He loves every kind of sport on planet earth. He is married to a sweet and godly young woman and they are parents to my first grandgirl. Oh my, life as an abuela (grandma) is so sweet! DJ (my youngest) is Mr. Talent. Singer, songwriter, musician, graphic designer, etc… He’s my go-to guy for all things computer.

Tidbits - Here’s a little-known tidbit of information about yours truly. I was adopted. My birth mom was raped - I was the result. I met her when I was 27 and was elated to find out she was a believer. God has blessed me beyond measure with two wonderful moms. One that loved me past the pain of rape and chose life for me instead and one who would love me and raise me as her own.

Here she is telling us a little more about herself (perhaps in a more conventional manner!):

Tell us about your new Bible study and what you hope readers will get out of doing this study.

We all want to know our lives count. And in our Christian conversations we talk a lot about living for eternity and having an eternal perspective, yet if we are honest, we often live as if this life is all there is.

Eternity is real and it awaits each one of us. There are no escape clauses.

Understanding What Matters Most is a six week study through the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s a journey that gives the reader an opportunity to personally sift the gamut of real life experiences and define their lives by what matters most. There are questions designed to examine the heart and inspire application.

Although many avoid Ecclesiastes, it is chock-full of wisdom - not only for Solomon, but for each of us. However, there are three overriding lessons I pray that each reader will walk away with.

1. We all long to define our existence with significance, yet the only way to truly do that is to make our eternity intentional. It’s a minute by minute choice of the will to filter the way we respond to life through the lens of eternity. I pray that Understanding What Matters Most will equip each reader with the necessary tools to do just that. We're all looking for answers, and Ecclesiastes really helps us understand how to make decisions and deal with our circumstances based on what is and what is not important in light of eternity.

2. The study of Ecclesiastes is certainly not for sissies! It deals with real issues and real life circumstances. I hope that readers will grasp the concept of eternity and the reality of our ultimate day of reckoning; I pray the truth of that reality will help them live each day in light of THAT day.

3. A more subtle but profound lesson we can learn from this study is to see the grace of God at work in Solomon's life and understand that same grace is available to us. Solomon was the wisest man to walk the planet, yet he blew it big time! Solomon’s life is proof that wisdom doesn’t always equal perfection! The beautiful truth is that God still used Solomon, even after he failed. I hope readers never forget that God is so much bigger than our failure - that His love for us transcends our ability to mess things up - that as long as we have breath, He still has a plan for our lives and the days we are given under the sun.

How did God lay this book on your heart to write?

When I began writing Understanding What MattersMost, I didn't begin in hopes of publishing a book. Understanding What Matters Most was birthed from my own place of need. It was during a time when God had called us to the mission field and my 19 year old son didn't feel led to go. My maternal heart began to wrestle with the details of the call. I didn’t have a problem with the going...it was the leaving that gripped my heart and clouded my view. Who was going to take care of him if something went wrong? What if he got hurt? What about our parents? I was trying desperately to make sense of that which didn't make sense at all.

That's when the Lord gently led me to Ecclesiastes and gave me a bird's-eye view of Solomon's own attempts to make sense of the details of his life. After he ran the gamut of life experiences, he understood what matters most. I knew I needed that kind of clarity. Not only for the circumstances surrounding our call to the mission field, but to help me walk through life with the imprint of eternity on my heart. My study of Ecclesiastes gave me the tools I needed to filter the essential from the non-essential in light of eternity. When God put it on my heart to send it to a publisher and they said yes, that’s when I knew He wanted to use it for more than just notes for a conference.

Who would you say would benefit from your book?

It’s primarily a Bible study for women. However, since I’m a veteran home school mom who remembers how hard it was to find a good Bible study for my children, I would also like to encourage home school moms to use it as a study for their high school students. What a great opportunity to walk through Ecclesiastes as they sit at Solomon’s feet and get a clear picture of how empty the pursuits of this life can be and how important it to live each day with eternity in view!

Do you have a website or blog where readers can find out more about you or how they can book you to speak at their next event?

http://www.stephanieshott.com

Thanks, Stephanie, for letting us get to know you and your book a little better! It sounds like a wonderful study, and I look forward to working through it soon!

You can order this book here.

Stephanie has generously offered to provide a personally autographed copy of this wonderful study to one blessed person!

There are several ways to gain entry:

1) Leave a comment here on the blog, telling me one thing you know about the book of Ecclesiates, and why studying it appeals to you. Please make sure to leave your email address in this format – sample[at]gmail[dot]com.

2) Follow Stephanie on Twitter. Please leave a separate comment stating that you are now following her, along with your email address in the sample[at]gmail[dot]com format.

3) Follow me on Twitter. If you are already a Twitter follower, that counts, too! Please leave a new comment to that effect, along with your email address in the sample[at]gmail[dot]com format.

4) Visit Stephanie’s website and leave a comment here telling me one thing you learned about her; please make sure to include your email address in the sample[at]gmail[dot]com format.

5) Follow me as a Google Friend on this blog; if you are already a Friend, that counts, too! Please leave a new comment to that effect, along with your email address in the sample[at]gmail[dot]com format.

So there are LOTS of chances to enter! Please limit one entry per option except for the Twitter tweet option (which can be done once per day), along with your email address in the sample[at]gmail[dot]com format.

This give away is for U.S. residents only. The deadline for entry is Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. EST. A winner will be chosen via the Random Number Generator on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 and will be contacted via email. The best to all of you!

I don’t know about you, but for me, the summer is zooming by. After summer comes fall – and the resumption of Women’s Ministries at many churches. I just discovered a terrific book for just that purpose – ‘The Faith Dare: 30 Days to Live Your Life to the Fullest’ by Debbie Alsdorf.

Here is the synopsis of this book:

What Would Happen If You Lived Out Your Faith Every Day, In Every Situation?

Jesus came to give us abundant life. So why are so many of us living with worn-out faith, struggling just to get by? What if there was something more? What if we could be set free from worry, fear, and the constant cycle of searching for significance?

The Faith Dare is a 30-day challenge for women who want to develop a new habit of focusing on God’s ways and daily awareness of his presence. It is for women who are tired of ho-hum living and want to break the pattern of self-reliance and people pleasing by putting their trust in God alone and living to please him. This personalized study guide, including daily readings, affirmations, and challenges, will help you live in the power of God’s Word.

Whether you do this with a group of girlfriends or by yourself, the next 30 days can change your life. If you’re ready to discover what it looks like to live out real faith, every day, open this book and take the challenge.

I dare you.

Here is the biography of this author:

Debbie Alsdorf is the author of Deeper and A Different Kind of Wild. She is founder of Design4Living Ministries and Design4Living conferences. A popular conference speaker and a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors, Debbie is on the ministry staff at Cornerstone Fellowship as the director of women’s ministries. She lives in California.

In the Introduction, Debbie tells us what her book is about:

This book is not about faith in ourselves. It is about faith in a God who is bigger than us, more powerful than us, and filled with more love for us than we could possibly begin to imagine. It is this God, the one who created us on purpose – for his purpose – whom we can trust with every aspect of our lives.

The problem is that trusting a God we do not see does not come naturally to us. Trusting God is a spiritual lifestyle to be learned. Walking out that faith takes a lifetime of baby steps in the direction of spiritual trust. As we grow, we learn how to trust God. We develop new habits of looking to him, new habits of processing and digesting the Word of God, new habits of living our faith, and new habits of relating to other people in our lives. New habits don’t happen overnight; they happen over time. (p. 10)

Debbie explains what her life has been like for the past twenty years:

The past twenty years of my life have been a journey into something deeper, a ride of wild faith that has taken me places I have never dreamed of, has tested me with one thought: God is true, mighty, and loving. This thought is what guides me on the path of faith today.

I describe this new path as wild because it is wildly different from anything I have ever known. It is uncharted territory for me. It is not conventional, not understandable, but radical. I also like to think of wild as being the acronym: Women In Lifelong Development. When I focus on God’s process of developing me and shaping me in faith, I get excited. When I focus on the process, I am okay letting go of the perfection. When I focus on the process of development, my life falls into a new groove. (p. 11)

Debbie defines what she means by wild faith:

Wild faith is surrendered, passionate, and courageous. It humbly seeks and fearlessly follows. Most of us only dream about wild faith. We live a repressed, suppressed, depressed type of faith. It’s time to live in all that God has for us. It’s time to live our fullest, richest, most abundant life – a life of walking, breathing, eating, sleeping faith.

Here’s to thirty days of challenging our beliefs and daring to follow the dare! (p. 13)

Debbie explains how this Faith Dare should be taken:

You are encouraged to set aside a time daily, preferably at the beginning of the day, to read that day’s truth and dare. It is helpful if you can find a time when you are not distracted, can focus for a short time, and can process what you are reading. After you read and process the truth, you will have the opportunity to jot down your immediate thoughts. After you are done, take the dare into your day and intentionally apply that truth and your own personal dare to your life. Make a mental note of how this made that day different, or journal during the thirty days about how God is changing your life through this fasting of self and intentional focus on him and his Word. (p. 16)

I love how she concludes the Introduction:

Let’s Begin Our Reboot!

· Power down from self – come to Christ daily.

· Restart in the power of the Spirit – follow him daily.

· Open up to new possibilities – experience the difference he makes in a surrendered

life. (p. 20)

We really need to build our faith; that usually involves overcoming deeply ingrained wrong habits and beliefs:

Each of us has developed habits concerning whom or what we put our faith in. Many of us, even well-meaning Christians, have learned to put our faith in human wisdom and human understanding. We have developed ingrained habits of thinking, reasoning, and living that have become part of us through repetition and practice. When it comes to our spiritual lives, we have habits of thinking, reacting, believing, and living that often keep us from God’s intended best for us.

If you want more – the fullest life possible – you must learn to focus on what is true according to God’s Word: the claims of Christ, the promises of Christ, and the character of Christ. This focus is not natural for us because we grow up learning to focus on ourselves. But this upward focus can become our new normal and change us in ways we never thought possible. (p. 24)

Tests and trials show us what we really believe:

Every test and trial raises two important questions: What do you believe about God? How strongly do you believe it? In our trials our belief in God can override our feelings if we learn to focus on God and his track record of faithfulness rather than on our feelings of hopelessness in the current situation. If you haven’t yet had a lot of personal experience with God’s faithfulness, read stories of God’s faithfulness to his people in Scripture.

Hard times humble us. This humbling tests what we really believe. When we endure, testing causes our faith to grow stronger and more mature. Strong and maturing faith fills us up to the fullest measure of joy – as our lives are not as dependent on feelings, people, or circumstances. We begin to transcend this world with a newfound faith in a God who is above all things. (p. 35)

Debbie reminds us that God is for us, not against us:

God has designed us to pass the tests that he allows to come our way. He wants us to succeed. But most of us think God allows hardships so he can zap us and hurt us. This thinking, though natural, is not biblical. We need to remember what God’s Word says about his love, life tests, discipline, endurance, and being conformed to his image. When we see the character of God always rooting for us, shaping us as seems best, we can applaud test, though hard, and actually rejoice in them. How we respond to life and tests will determine the outcome. As your faith grows stronger, you become more faithful. To be faithful is actually being more filled with faith! (pp. 37-38)

Debbie breaks the devotional part of the book into three sections of ten days each:

· Live Up! In Relationship to God

· Live In! In Surrender of Self

· Live Out! In Relationship to Others

I will focus on one day in each section. Each day includes Today’s Praise/Prayer, Today’s Truth, Today’s Dare, a Journal section, Today’s Prayer, and Today I Believe.

Day 8 in the ‘Live Up! In Relationship to God’ section is ‘The Power Connection: Dare to Plug into the Power Source.’ Here is that day’s dare:

· Stop right now and plug into the source of all power, Jesus Christ. Do this by

getting away from everything for a moment and coming to Jesus in prayer and

handing every part of you over to him.

· Ask to be cleansed from your sin and filled anew with his Spirit.

· Now read today’s Scripture passages again, this time out loud. Spend some time

thinking about what connection means in your everyday reality.

· Dare to step out of your comfort zone today. Dare to try something you would not

ordinarily feel you could do. Experience the power of God enabling you to live

above yourself.

Day 15 in the ‘Live In! In Surrender of Self’ section is ‘He Completes Me: Dare to Believe You Are Complete in God.’ I loved this:

When Tom Cruise said, “You complete me,” to Renee Zellweger in the movie Jerry McGuire,

every woman in the audience melted. Why? Because we all want to be loved like that. We long for it in friendship, in romance, and even in motherhood. We are searching for that person or those people who will complete us, making everything resembling half in us a beautiful whole.

But what if we believed it is Christ who completes us? Or that we actually are complete because of Christ in us and his work for us? Could it be that this kind of love is the only thing that makes us balanced, centered, secure, and yes…complete?

If we believed we are complete in Christ, we could stop our search for something more and could begin living life. Gone would be the five steps to success, the speedy plan for getting our acts together, or the fool-proof plan for a better life. We could stop feeling needy and move into a place of confidence. Realizing we are complete in Christ makes all that he is doing in us worth some of the pain – because in the end the maturity and wholeness will be the spiritual gain. (pp. 135-136)

Day 23 in the ‘Live Out! In Relationship to Others’ section is ‘Put Down the Stones: Dare to Quit Being Critical of Others.’ Debbie explains how Jesus was in comparison to how we can be when it comes to other people:

Jesus – compassionate, loving, always looking for the best in people. He was quick to love, kind in correction, strong in conviction, and humble in his dealings with people. I like to think of this as the Jesus style of life: loving others. But the problem with loving others, is that I am often critical of them, don’t understand their choices, and get frustrated to the point of pointing a finger in judgment. I wonder what would happen if I just laid down the stones. What if I could quit being so critical? What would life look like them? (p. 184)

Here is how Debbie opens the Conclusion:

You did it! It takes thirty days to form a new habit. During the past thirty days, you began the formation of a new habit of seeking God, processing truth, and finding ways to live out God’s Word. You also practiced dying to self by choosing the right things – ways of doing life that are biblical but might be uncomfortable.

Our best, fullest life becomes ours as we focus not on self but on Christ and his ways for us. It is amazing how making this change, even for a day, can make such a huge difference in attitude and action. But as you move forward, you can be certain of one thing: there is an enemy lurking about trying to rob you of your faith. You must purchase a security system and install it on your life. The security system is joy. To install it you must remove your previous system of fear, worry, and doubt. Once you change service providers, your life will be different, safer, more peaceful, and fuller. You have to make a decision to change. The offer is open to you, but you have to choose the new provider. (pp. 227-228)

She also shares with us this reminder:

Your life is no longer your own. Your life is not random. It is hidden in Christ. You are protected, shielded, care for, provided for…by Christ. You are covered by his faithfulness and power. To look up, focus your attention on what is biblically true rather than on what you are feeling. (p. 228)

I think this is a terrific study on Christian living! Although I have not taken the Faith Dare as yet (by working through each day), I think it is quite worthwhile. I would love to do it with a friend, so I will be praying in the coming weeks for God to show me the perfect person with whom to share this journey. I thank Debbie for pouring out her heart and writing this wonderful book!

You can order this book here.

This book was published by Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group and provided for review purposes.