Daring to Hope

I read “Daring to Hope” by Katie Davis Major in a day because I couldn’t stop. As she told stories of motherhood and ministry in Uganda, I was pulled in, wanting to hear more about the people she serves and, more importantly, the God she serves. She quotes scripture throughout the book and then references the specific verses with endnotes. At first, I wanted to know exactly what she was quoting, but then I couldn’t step away from her stories long enough to flip to the endnotes. That reminded me how we’re called to live out our faith in ways that show others Jesus, not ourselves.

The snapshot view of my life looks nothing like hers, but I still related to her stories because she’s human and, like me and probably you, is finding God in the small ways she lives her life on a daily basis.

“Slowly, I was beginning to understand, it wasn’t my productivity that God desired, it was my heart. It wasn’t my ministry God loved, it was me. God was glorified, is glorified, when we give Him our hearts, give Him ourselves, and faithfully do the thing right in front of us, no matter how small or seemingly trivial. … In a full life of trying to do great big things for God and see His glory in great big ways, He showed me that He is glorified in the small, too. He is glorified in each pot of pasta faithfully put on the table for our people. He is glorified each time we look into a stranger’s eyes and acknowledge their humanity. He is glorified when we turn our gaze to focus on Him instead of focusing on our lack, and He is glorified when we help our child with her hundredth math problem even though we have already explained repeatedly the steps to a solution. Our God is not too big for the small and is glorified in our ordinary moments as we invite Him in. When I invite Him into my tiny and ordinary, even mundane moments become extraordinary. Small acts of love become whispers of His glory in the midst of our everydayness.”

– Katie Davis Majors in “Daring to Hope”

My everydayness doesn’t look like Katie’s everydayness, but we serve the same God who provided a ram in the thicket when Abraham climbed a mountain in obedience when asked to sacrifice his son, who let Jacob wrestle and loved him anyway, who makes families not always through biology, and who promises us His presence.

God’s provision doesn’t always look like
we expect, but He still always provides.

{Tweet that.}

Reading Katie’s book was good for my soul, the one weary from falling into a trap of trying too hard. She reminded me what God’s faithfulness looks like – in the Bible and in my own life. I remembered some dark days of infertility, hard parts of adoption, and the scary days with my son when he was burned. But, more importantly, I also remembered how God brought light.

“God sees you and me in our pain and our brokenness. He sees you walking a difficult path when the sun goes down and your life is a far cry from that which you expected or dreamed up. He sees you when the ending of the story is not the one that you yearned for and your prayers seem unanswered and it all just feels like a bit of a mess. He wants to name these places The Lord Will Provide. When we thought life might be easier, when we thought things might be different, when we thought we might be better, be more, God provides His Son, who meets us and provides grace for our gaps and light in our darkness.”

– Katie Davis Majors in “Daring to Hope”

Our circumstances usually change, but the God who provides and redeems doesn’t – and that’s why we can put our hope in Him.

About the book

When Katie Davis Majors moved to Uganda, accidentally founded a booming organization, and later became the mother of thirteen girls through the miracle of adoption, she determined to weave her life together with the people she desired to serve. But joy often gave way to sorrow as she invested her heart fully in walking alongside people in the grip of poverty, addiction, desperation, and disease.

“Daring to Hope: Finding God’s Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful” is an invitation to cling to the God of the impossible, the God who whispers His love to us in the quiet, in the mundane, when our prayers are not answered the way we want or the miracle doesn’t come. It’s about a mother discovering the extraordinary strength it takes to be ordinary. It’s about choosing faith no matter the circumstance and about encountering God’s goodness in the least expected places.

This 224-page hardcover book is published by Multnomah and officially releases Oct. 3, 2017. You can preorder it now so it will show up in your mailbox then!

About the author

Katie Davis Majors moved to Uganda more than a decade ago with no idea that this would be the place that God chose to build her home and her family. Today, she is a wife to Benji and mama to her fourteen favorite people. Katie and her family invest their lives in empowering the people of Uganda with education, medical care, and spiritual discipleship. She is also the founder of Amazima Ministries, an organization that cares for vulnerable children and families in Uganda, and the author of the New York Times bestseller “Kisses from Katie.”

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