★★★★★ 5
Challenging, encouraging, and oh so beautiful
Format: Hardcover
I’ll start by saying what may already be obvious, this book, Beholding and Becoming, The Art of Everyday Worship by Ruth Chou Simons, is *beautiful*. The artwork throughout is entirely comprised of watercolors by Ruth. I have been familiar with and loved her work so much over the years, and even so, the beauty in this book exceeded my expectations. One of my favorite things is the glossary where she gives the meanings of the recurring things she painted and invites you to sit awhile to experience the words and the art together and be encouraged.
The beauty in Beholding and Becoming is not limited to the artwork. The words are just as lovely. Each of the book’s 16 chapters is broken down into 2 sections: Beholding and Becoming. Ruth gives us a concept or attribute of the Lord to Behold and then gives us encouragement in allowing Christ to work in us so we can Become. The first chapter starts out with a bang in “Beholding: God’s Greatness in Creation” and then moves to “Becoming: It’s OK to be Small”. Ruth asks us the question of, Are we ok with God being great and us being not great? How do we see us and the Lord? Are we in control or is He? Other examples of chapters throughout the book are “Beholding: God’s Provision in the Unremarkable/Beholding: Learning to Love What Must Be Done” and “Beholding: God’s Example for Family/Becoming: The Mission Field is at Your Kitchen Table”. My favorite is the last chapter “Beholding: Our True Home/Becoming: Actively Abide”. In it Ruth talks of how nothing of this world will satisfy; our true home is in Him, the Lord Himself. Our longings will be satisfied solely in Him because He is whom we were created for. We were made to abide in him, but that abiding is an active thing not a passive one. It is a choice, a “deliberate pursuit”.
If allowed, this book will pierce and prod, it will challenge and encourage. It offers us an opportunity to really question how and what we think of the Lord. It encourages us to allow all the workings of our everyday lives to be places and times of worship not just something to grit our teeth and get through. Being called to be worshippers is not just a calling to do a thing, it’s calling to know and respond to a person.
My very favorite thing about Ruth is her consistency, day in and day out, in pointing us to see Jesus: to be looking to Him for all things and in all things. Beholding and Becoming is a beautiful extension of Ruth’s daily encouragements to worship in the midst of the everyday. I highly recommend.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2019

