Removing the Dragon from our Lives

It’s amazing to see where our journeys take us in life.  In his book, No More Dragons, Jim Burgen tells the very honest story about his life growing up in the church.  His joy in attending worship and being part of the that culture . . . that is, until one day the people of the church complained once too often about his father (the pastor) and how Jim’s mom played the organ.  On that day, Jim checked out of the church.  He still had to attend, but he became involved in drugs and alcohol until he met his wife and refound a relationship with Jesus.

This is the story about the dragon inside of us.  The dragon which needs to be conquered if God is going to do His work in us and if we are to become the creation God designed us to become.  Burgen explains we become dragons slowly, over time.  It’s not necessarily intentional, it just happens, from our choices and then one day we look in the mirror and we don’t see ourselves, we see a monster, a dragon staring back at us.  We realize we aren’t who we thought we were.

Burgen’s summation is that the only one who can save you, is the One, Jesus.  We need to take the steps to move closer to Christ, but in that process we need to be open to the work of Christ in our lives to remove, sometimes painfully, remove the dragon from our heart and spirit.  We need to hold onto Christ if we want to remain free from the dragon and his influence.  It’s not a one time only process, but it’s a life long process to become free and be the person Christ calls us to be.

Overall, this was a very good book.  At times I felt Burgen took too long to make his point, but that doesn’t take away from the good in the book. 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review from booklookbloggers.com.