WALKING IN YOUR OWN SHOE

Quote from the Book

“God uses all the events of our journey to shape our identities, even the ‘wrong turns’ we thought were failures or mistakes”

The Author

Robert A. Schuller was born October 7, 1954, and succeeded his father, Dr. Robert H. Schuller, as the Senior Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral Ministries and its internationally televised Hour of Power program for nearly three years. According to the Hour of Power website, he resigned as senior pastor on November 29, 2008. He continues his ministry with Robert Schuller Ministries. He received aMaster of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California as well as an honorary doctorate degree from National Hispanic University in San Jose, California in 1996. He received another honorary doctorate from the California Graduate School of Theology in 2008. He is also the best-selling author of Getting through the Going through Stage, Dump Your Hang Up’s, and Possibility Living

Insights from the Book

This book, published in 2007, packaged in fifteen chapters, spread across 256 pages was written by Robert A. Schuller. As the son of the founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral mega church in California and host of The Hour of Power television broadcast, Schuller grew up knowing that he would have big shoes to fill. Although he was inheriting the ministry reins, Schuller’s goal has been to do so in his own way, and in this book, he hopes to inspire others to fulfill their God-given potential and pursue their dreams. The encouragement is fairly trite: Schuller encourages readers that God is with them on their journey, that bad things that happen will be a good part of God’s overall plan, and that God has a unique purpose for everyone. While there is a lot of scripture throughout the book, these are shallow skimming, with brief thoughts held together by numerous stories and one analogy after another. He stresses the fact that Christ died for the purpose of ensuring you succeed in your journey, and develops an overview and creates your own personal map.

Robert encourages the reader to perpetually hold the truth that God had a specific reason when he formed us to be individuals, unique creations that each fulfills a special purpose. Everything we are, have been, and will be is all part of a grand plan of God’s love. Everything helps to shape us into the people God wants us to be and where we find our inner satisfaction, joy, and meaning as each individual follows the roads that point to the destination; the first being the road of faith; the second is the road of grace, and the third is the road of love. We must continue to explore these virtues as we strive to get to our destiny. However, he agrees with the fact that we run off course sometimes in an attempt to understand our God-ordained destiny; we find ourselves in some mess. When this happens, then we must not sit down there wallowing in it. We must arise like the prodigal son and find our way back to the father’s house. Robert described the road we can take back to our father thus: the road of confession, the road of forgiveness, and the road of repentance. He concludes this book with this striking statement: The ultimate goal of God for your life is to conform to the image of Jesus Christ and have you dwell with him for eternity (Rom 8:28-29). Your life only makes sense in the light of that goal.