Book Review: If…What If?

Quirky Questions and Daily Devotions to Feed Your Family and Your Faith

Written by: Tony Myles and Daniel Myles

I am so excited to have joined the B&H/LifeWay Bloggers. They will send me a book to read and review in exchange for my honest opinion.

My first book is entitled, “If…What If? Quirky Questions and Daily Devotions to Feed Your Family and Your Faith.” I am able to select the book that I want to read and review. In this case, I did not find the cover appealing at all. However, the idea of combining quirky questions and devotions intrigued me. I am so glad that it did because I find this book to be useful, engaging, easy to read, and full of truth.

Reading the Introduction set the tone for the entire book. The authors, a father and son, immediately relate to their readers by being honest, humorous and explaining in easy to understand terms what the book will contain.

The book is designed to help families understand the Bible better by breaking down the major teachings of the Bible into bite sized explanations. The authors state in the overview, “Tracking so far? Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Either way, it’s pretty awesome! To help you with this, we created a memorable phrase to help you understand the big message of the Bible: THERE IS HOPE.” This also explains how the book is set up. There are 11 different topics covered and the when you take the first letter of each subject, it spells, There Is Hope. Each subject is broken into 14 daily readings. Each daily reading contains some of quirky questions to help start a conversation. this is followed by a Scripture reference/s for the family to read together. Following that there is a devotion regarding those verses, a quote which draws back to the major them, and then more serious questions for the family to discuss. The final days of each week, days 7 and 14, are recaps, which contain Scripture, questions and prayer prompts.

If…What If? is remarkable in several ways. First, each day contains important truths from God’s Word in a very easily understood way. I was extremely impressed with the amount of information that was contained in this book. The authors managed to spread out the information in a way that made this information personal, important and easy to comprehend. Second, because the authors write in a format that sounds almost like they are talking to you, it reads more like a conversation than a lesson. Third, the quotes at the end of each day’s lessons serve not only as reminders of the lesson but reminders of how to live in light of what has been learned. Throughout the entire book, I marked quote after quote and finally just ended up putting tabs on pages so that I could easily turn back and remember that day.

I believe that this book would be an asset to families with children of all ages and varying stages of faith. The beginning questions each day are fun and will help pull in those who aren’t exactly excited about a daily devotional. The authenticity of the authors enables the reader to see the information without feeling as if they are being talked down to. Though each day is a small part of the gospel, the entirety of the book brings an extensive amount of information to the reader.

While some daily devotionals use only cute, fluffy, feel good material, this devotional brings the truth of God’s word very clearly, and yet still manages to be fun.