It's been a while

This blog didn't really get that far off the ground, did it? I'm now a fourth year medic, still a member of St Ebbe's church in Oxford, still thinking through issues of faith and doubt and trying to live for Jesus. This term has been a good one - medicine has been exciting and I've learnt lots of different things. Living with an English graduate has been a useful spur to me to do a bit more reading, which twinned with the hardy perennial of good chats with faithful Christian friends, has been of great help to me in my faith. I'm now on Christmas holiday and thought I might do some writing here over the next few weeks to help me crystallise some recent thoughts and bring the record up to date! Even this evening as I've re-read previous posts I've been struck that some of the "new lessons" I thought I'd learnt this term aren't actually new lessons at all, but rather rememberings of lessons that I knew two years ago.

In the next couple of weeks I'd like to write a bit more about the nature and basis for faith, some thoughts on the dreaded Quiet Time, as well as some book reviews of Spiritual Depression by Martin Lloyd Jones, Tested by Fire by John Piper, and depending on how far I get, perhaps the rather contrasting works of House of God by Samuel Shem, and (if I've read it) Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. But to kick off this evening (and procrastinate getting on with wrapping my Christmas presents...) a review of a book that I first read over a year ago, and which has been frequently referred to and recommended to friends since. I think it is (apart from the bible) the single most helpful book I have ever come across. If there is anyone out there reading this blog who is currently actually struggling with doubt, stop reading this blog, and start reading this book...