Completely revised more than 15 years after its first printing, To Walk and Not Faint is Marva J. Dawn’s popular first book. Her devotional reflections examine Isaiah 40 as it deals with many of the critical issues of daily life. Dawn’s meticulous study opens up each verse of Isaiah 40 to challenge us with significant insights for faith and profound motivation for growth in discipleship. The structure of the book bridges head and heart: it offers both exegetical depth and personal involvement for a month of devotional reflection. Each meditation observes the text carefully, considers some of the nuances and implications of the original Hebrew, and identifies how our lives fit into the bigger story of the biblical narrative. Thus, the book both supplies skills for biblical meditation and invites readers to contemplate God’s relation to all the cries of human existence, to realize how a relationship with the Trinity gives us the unusual ability to handle all the dimensions of life.
“It took men like Ezra and Nehemiah, faithful leaders who listened to instruction from YHWH” (Page 78)
“fools in our presumptions that we do not trust this” (Page 75)
“Though I am grateful for my country, I cannot give it undivided loyalty. Loving it forces me to be critical of its business tactics and governmental policies, its selling of weapons to feed the world’s atrocities, its flagrant practice and exportation of immorality, its exploitation of poorer countries, its consumerism and waste. These certainly cannot be my practices if I am a loving citizen of God’s Kingdom.” (Pages 106–107)
“yet he deigns to use us and to make us valuable members of his body to effect his will on the earth” (Page 80)
“How can we describe God? By what means shall we come to a greater understanding of YHWH” (Page 110)