If you ever doubted it, an hour of flipping around various television networks will remind you that you are battling for your children. Satan has the world firmly in his grasp and they are fighting a fierce battle to lure your kids away from God.
I was interested when offered an opportunity to review the book Spiritual Warfare for Your Family by Leighton McCoy. McCoy is the wife of a minister and a minister herself. She has a child who has evidently turned her back on God and McCoy has fought a multi-year battle with cancer.
Because of her life experiences, I can understand why this topic is so real to McCoy. I think she does have a point that we often forget we are fighting a battle with Satan for the souls of our family. We tend to meander through life hoping for the best and shocked when our kids grow up to reject God and His commands.
Having said that though, personally she spent a little too much time going into great detail about the war with Satan and our weapons against him. Not that there was anything particularly wrong with it. It just felt a little dry and redundant after awhile.
I was more disappointed though, because spending all of that time at the beginning of the book made her race through the best part of her book. The last part of her book discusses a variety of issues by the ages of your children and then by topic. She gives lots of practice insight, but for most of them there are only a couple of pages. I wish she had made each of those chapters much longer and shortened the first part of the book.
There is one topic that makes the book worth purchasing, even if you don’t read the rest of the book. She goes into personal details of what can and usually does happen when your family becomes focused on the sport(s) your children play. I have seen what she shares happened to her family happen over and over again and yet the church rarely even discusses it. I beg you to read her testimony, as it could very well help save your kids from the path her child and many others find themselves on after years of athletic focus.
This book is a toss up for me. There is some real value in it – even some crucial value. You just have to be willing to read through some slower material to get there. If you are in the midst of the same serious battles as the author, then you may find those parts incredibly meaningful and helpful. For those of us with more common battles though, I think it just took a little too long for her to get to the really practical parts.
This book was given to me for free in exchange for my honest review. An affiliate link is included for your convenience.