I do not have a Kindle.  What I have is the Kindle app for my phone.  I enjoy the portability of reading books on the go.  But I’m not rich, so I look for cheap or discounted books.  A friend of mine (Hi Greg!) pointed me to a website that shows what Kindle books are currently free or really inexpensive.

I have downloaded several books for my Kindle. Most of the free books with a Christian slant are geared for women, but I finally found one that was written for me: “Day of War” by Cliff Graham.

Day of War is the story of King David from Israel’s history as told in the Old Testament of the Bible.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with his story, David was chosen by God to be the next king after King Saul.  Saul didn’t like that (obviously), so David had to spend several years in exile before he became king.  There were many men who joined David while he was in exile, and they became a highly trained military band that was favored by God in many battles.  Some of the feats performed by these men seem almost impossible, such as killing 300 or more men on the same day with a spear, which Josheb did (I Chronicles 11:11).

Cliff Graham takes the details given in the Bible about David and his men, and fills in the missing bits, giving a very exciting, action-packed and realistic account that is true to the text and the sense of Scripture.  When reading these stories, you realize the fictional bits could have happened exactly as he tells it.  Graham gives meaning to the term “fleshing out a character” when he takes a character that is mentioned in only a few verses of the Bible and writes an entire story around that person.

The good thing about these stories is that they are both entertaining and enlightening.  The stories are amazingly well written (you almost feel like you’re there), and yet there is a spiritual lesson to be learned through them.  The main lesson I learned so far is a section from Day of War where Benaiah was talking to David. David says that we should ask for God’s covering (God’s empowering through the Holy Spirit) “in the day of war.” Benaiah asks why only the day of war? Why not when you’re working in the field? Why not every day? To which David replies, “Every day IS the day of war.”

From this I am reminded that I shouldn’t only ask for God’s help when things are going really badly, but every day with all things.  This is a lesson Joshua and the Israelites learned at Ai. They defeated the impossible-to-beat enemy at Jericho with God’s help, but when faced with a much weaker and easy-to-beat enemy at Ai, they didn’t think they needed God’s help. They did.

So anyway, go buy Cliff’s book. I know you will enjoy it.  If you do, read the other ones in the series.  He just came out with a short story about Benaiah, a man I had never heard of, and yet he is mentioned about forty times in the Bible.  Cliff has written a short story about him (called “Benaiah”) which is also available on Kindle.  Do yourself a solid and read that too.  They aren’t expensive. And they are worth it. Seriously, let me know what you think.