{"id":209,"date":"2011-08-14T21:47:52","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T02:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/?p=209"},"modified":"2011-08-14T21:55:52","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T02:55:52","slug":"some-observations-on-saint-by-ted-dekker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/?p=209","title":{"rendered":"Some thoughts on Saint, by Ted Dekker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many months ago, I borrowed the book Saint<\/em> from a friend of mine. I had heard of the author Ted Dekker before, he is a well respected fiction author in many Christian circles. The book is very action-packed. Probably spends a lot more words on a romantic relationship than I would normally prefer. I did finally make it to the end of the book, and did enjoy it. I didn’t decide that I wanted to finish the book until I was at least 1\/3 of the way in – another hint that the book is probably a little bit wordy\/slow moving for me.<\/p>\n

There were a couple parts of the book I did really enjoy. Probably my favorite quote from the book is on page 274. As you’ll see, the main character Johnny is in a bit of a depressed state:<\/p>\n

He walked into the canyon, bearing an ache in his heart that hurt worse than any needle he’d received through the shoulder…
\nHe felt nothing but utter loneliness.
\nHe wanted Kelly to come and hold him.
\nHe wanted to die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a feeling I think I can sympathize with. In my lowest moments, I have similar thoughts rolling through my mind. It’s a couple pages later that Johnny learns that his purpose in life is not to be happy, but to selflessly love others.<\/p>\n

Honoring God by loving others is our purpose in life. I would encourage checking out 1 Corinthians 13<\/a> for a quick refresher on what this kind of love looks like. Done properly, I think it will bring about the most complete kind of happiness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many months ago, I borrowed the book Saint from a friend of mine. I had heard of the author Ted Dekker before, he is a well respected fiction author in many Christian circles. The book is very action-packed. Probably spends a lot more words on a romantic relationship than I would normally prefer. I did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapinggnome.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}