Given the number of people who've been "saved," you'd think the world was becoming a brighter place. It could be, too, if more people would grasp the joy of losing themselves in service to God and each other. People like Christoph Blumhardt, who, in his quest to get to the essentials of faith, burns away the religious trappings of modern piety like so much chaff.

Blumhardt writes with unabashed fervor, but his passion encourages rather than intimidates. His witness influenced theological giants like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth. But Action in Waiting is not...

Bad days are one thing - everyone has them now and then. But what about the darker clouds that settle over a life for weeks or even months at a time? What about separation and divorce, prolonged illness and hospitalization? What about the loss of a friend or a parent, the absence of a child or a spouse?

For the friend or family member who just isn't coping, no matter what you say, the sturdy simplicity of this little volume offers something most well-meaning sympathy cards forget: a gentle insistence that there is still a God who watches over all, and a stubborn faith that...