Messed-up Mustard Seeds and Broken Want-to’s

These are a couple of chapter titles in a book that I just finished reading – Heart Wide Open by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson.

The title sound benign enough…  ah…. but it’s the sub-title that says it all:

Trading Mundane Faith For An Exuberant Life With Jesus 

And then I will take it one step further… The opening page of Chapter 1:

“Jesus, I know I don’t love You like I should, but I want to want to love You!”  

Can you relate?  I’ll be honest.  I can.  Hence, the broken want-to.

Like the author, I was raised in Church.  I had a healthy respect for all things “Jesus”, I had a healthy respect for all the teachings, precepts, and traditions of my Church.  And yes, God did feel real enough while I was in that building, I just didn’t know what happened to Him when I left the building. And I don’t know that I ever thought about it.

I love this line from the book – “… I didn’t understand why my faith felt so compartmentalized”   (page 4) 

I can so relate.  It’s not as tho I was leading two, three, four, five lives.  I had only one life… just with different compartments.  Each compartment holding the necessary tools, skills, and abilities needed for that “compartment” to succeed.  But what I didn’t see till now was that I had put my faith, my Lord and Savior, my eternity,… in a compartment.   All neatly organized and ready to be opened at a moment’s notice should something arise that would require me to rely on my faith.

Heart Wide Open, will challenge that.  Actually this book made me a bit sad.  It made me sad to think about what I have been missing all these years.  Especially when I think about how I’ve been so okay with getting by with just enough faith to secure my place in Heaven? 

I want more.  I want to fix my broken want-to.  I don’t want anymore messed-up mustard seeds and neither should you.  It’s time to really go for an all-out pursuit of HIM!  It’s time to open our hearts and invite HIM to live there every hour of every day.  It’s time to truly love HIM and to let HIM truly love you.   I would encourage you to scroll down through this post…  you will find a link to that will allow you to read the first chapter of this book.  Take some time to read it, you will be blessed.

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As always, with every book I receive from various publishers, I am required to write a review.  Below is that review:

 Heart Wide Open: Trading Mundane Faith for an Exuberant Life with Jesus by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“As a Bible-believing churchgoer, author Shellie Tomlinson harbored a secret in her good-girl heart. She longed for something more than routine faith; she wanted to love God with a genuine, all-consuming passion. So she got honest with Him: “I admit it. I don’t love you like I should, but I want to love you. Help me!”

Are you ready to stop struggling to make time for God and instead live every moment with God?”

For me, the title of this book says it all… Heart Wide Open: Trading Mundane Faith for an Exuberant Life With Jesus. Who wouldn’t want to have an exuberant life with Jesus? Can you imagine what that would look like? I can admit it – my faith is mundane. I found truth in the words of the opening of Chapter 1 – “Jesus, I know I don’t love You like I should, but I want to want to love You!”

This book is a treasure; I found my own story here.

Moving past the title of the book, I chuckled at the titles of some of the chapters as she discusses our “broken want-to”, our “messed-up mustard seeds” and our wish to “slap ‘em silly in Jesus’ name”.

The author, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, has an easy style of telling her own life struggles that it feels as though you are having coffee with a dear sweet friend. While sometimes funny, and everytime heart-warming, her personal and honest stories will strike a cord in your heart. If you’re like me, you will hear yourself saying… yes… that’s it… someone gets it.

In my opinion, this is a book that requires more than one reading to uncover the wealth of truths within the covers. As an added bonus, the author has provided a Bible Study and Discussion Guide for use as a small group study.

Download or read the first chapter at: http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/wp-con…

For more about the Author and her other books: http://www.belleofallthingssouthern.com/

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/wa… : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

*Reviews of this book were posted at the following locations:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Deeper Shopping, and Goodreads,

View all my reviews
This book is available online at
Deeper Shopping Books and Bibles

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