I was contacted back in January by author Sarah J Callen to review her new devotional on the book of Proverbs. I enjoy these type of reviews the most. It feels more personal to me than writing for a review company. I am always awed when someone contacts me and offers their own hard work for my comments.

The book will be released on March fifth on Amazon in soft cover and e-book. Once it is released I’ll add the links to this post.

A Proverb A Day: A 40-Day Devotional is a forty day devotional over the thirty-one chapters of Proverbs. To make up for the extra nine days the author spends a little more time with a few chapters. In the introduction she encourages the reader to go slowly and spend more time with a particular proverb if the need is felt. She also reminds us with Solomon and James as our examples we can request wisdom from God and expect an answer.

Each day of the devotional has reflection questions and a couple of pages of her own commentary on the proverb in question and personal insight. I found the questions to be really thought-provoking and I often thought about them throughout the day. Though I  worked through the devotional in the morning I often ended up adding more thoughts to my journal at the end of the day. As I worked through the first week I realized this would be a perfect Lenten devotional. By the end of the week I was thinking about how I use my time, am I trusting towards God, do I even believe that God wants anything to do with my heart? These are not shallow questions.

The author shares her own wisdom each day with very relatable, humble commentary. I felt like the author was experiencing the devotional with me instead of guiding me through, like a shared experience. She shares her experiences and thoughts on certain verses of Proverbs but doesn’t try to give us an entire breakdown of every single verse. Because Proverbs is such a rich book I think this devotional could be reused over the years. The questions are so thoughtful and designed to bring the reader to the heart of Jesus that I would like to work through this devotional again in a few years and see how I’ve changed and hopefully grown.

A Proverb A Day Devotional is one of the very best journals I’ve worked through in a long time and I highly recommend it. I plan to order my own paper copy tomorrow!