I have met many people who have gone through life with dreams of achieving success, but they never did. Some of them gave up hope because of a bad life experience or perhaps a lack of resilience made them abandon their unfulfilled dreams. I have spoken to thousands of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, people who have been through the worst life experiences, and they want to know “How does one overcome adversity and achieve success?”

My aims with this book are to provide answers to this question and to provide helpful tools and tips that can be utilised to achieve success in the face of adversity. In the first 9 chapters I tell my life story and give you a glimpse of the difficult journey I have travelled to achieve success. From chapter 10, I delve deeper into the ways in which I conducted my life in order to achieve success and I often use scriptures from the Bible to bring across certain concepts.

My prayer is if you are experiencing adversity that my life story will encourage you to persevere against all odds. With my journey, I demonstrate that for you to reach your destiny, you must cherish both the good and bad experiences. What you are experiencing now may be because of poor choices or circumstances beyond your control, but these experiences will mould you into the person that God has predestined you to become, and they will guide you to your destiny.

Hykie Berg is ’n bekende film- en TV-akteur, geliefd en gewild reg oor Suid-Afrika. Hy is ook 'n verslaafde. Op die kruin van sy suksesloopbaan verloor Hykie alles en draai by die dood om. Hier vertel hy sy verhaal openhartig, van die dwelmhole van Hillbrow tot in 'n maksimum-sekuriteitsel in die Weskoppies-hospitaal, waar God hom van 'n gewisse dood red. Hykie nooi jou uit om te onthou dat God se liefde ook vir jou bedoel is, en dat, al doen ons wat, God ons nie laat gaan nie.

Hoewel verlies en dood universeel is, hanteer elkeen dit anders. Christene se groot troos is dat God daar is in hulle pyn.

In Geseënd is die wat treur beskryf geliefde outeurs hul eie ervarings met verlies, rou en die dood. Ons Christene se grootste troos bly egter dat daar lewe na die dood is: daar is 'n weersiens.

Agter in die boek is 'n lys van tekste wat jy in jou Bybel kan gaan naslaan vir verskeie situasies.

Conquer Your Mountains is a 52-week devotional for Christian professionals who want to make a difference and see life from a higher perspective. It contains contemplative prayers, self-reflection exercises, thought provoking messages and a fictional allegory of a spiritual journey with God.

This book is designed to help the reader understand and engage with the invisible and almighty works of God in their daily lives. Even though the symbol and theme of mountains are used throughout this powerful book, it is not a book about nature but rather a book about the divine nature of God and who we are to Him as his creations.

As the reader engages with each of the 52 weeks in this devotional, a deep transformational work will begin that may positively change the readers’ outlook on God, life, finance, work, relationships, purpose, and everything else.

His street name was Daylight. But he was a nightmare.

On the streets of New York, darkness and violence reigned. Dimas “Daylight” Salaberrios popped his first pill when he was eleven years old, and just days later, he was selling drugs to his schoolmates. By fifteen, he was facing time at the notorious Rikers Island Prison. It was never safe to turn your back, and Dimas saw only one chance to survive: to become a street god. He would be the richest, most powerful ruler in the hood . . . or die trying.

But in one terrifying moment, with a gun pointed at his head, Dimas had to decide: How far would he go? Was he finished taking reckless chances to rule as a god of the streets? Would he dare to entrust his life to the real God―an even riskier path? Because that God would send Dimas back down the darkest streets he’d ever known on a rescue mission after those still in danger.

Street God is the true story of one man’s against-all-odds journey from the streets to the altar and back again. A modern-day The Cross and the Switchblade for a new generation, it reveals that we’re never too far gone for God to change us―and shows how a single spark can illuminate even the darkest existence.

Discover timeless leadership principles through the lives of Scripture’s greatest figures. In Great Leaders of the Bible, John C. Maxwell, a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world’s most trusted voices on leadership, explores 28 biblical examples of men and women who demonstrated extraordinary courage, faith, and wisdom in the face of life’s greatest challenges.

From Moses leading God’s people through the wilderness to Esther risking everything for her people, each story reveals what true leadership looks like when tested by adversity.

Every chapter includes:

• A biblical story highlighting a defining leadership moment
• A life lesson for everyday application
• A leadership principle from the Bible
• A heartfelt prayer for personal growth and guidance

Whether you lead in business, ministry, or your home, Great Leaders of the Bible will inspire you to lead with humility, courage, and conviction―following the example of those who trusted God in the hardest moments.

Perfect for personal study, leadership development, or small groups, this book reminds readers that the greatest leaders are not defined by power or position, but by faithful obedience to God’s calling.

The writers of the Bible speak to us with their words, and the Bible's characters speak to us with their lives. Their powerful examples reveal the spiritual inspiration and brilliant insight the human writers and the divine Writer intended. Times, cultures, traditions, and societal values may change from century to century, but human nature does not.

We value people whose words and actions reflect their true thoughts and intentions. People of integrity purposely integrate their own thoughts, words, and behaviors. They work at making their own hearts and minds, thoughts and ideas consistent with the godly character portrayed in Scripture.

These twenty-five Bible personalities in Choose Your Character cultivate a desire to deepen the commitment to live a life of unfailing integrity. Their examples teach us how to increase our personal satisfaction and effectiveness while strengthening our ability to influence others.

This book of graces and reflections integrates thankfulness with a burning passion for justice, both of which are central to our relationship with a bountiful provider God, with the whole creation, with each other and with our brothers and sisters throughout the world who, because of greed and injustice, will not receive their daily bread. This work invites us to pray and recommit ourselves to act for justice each time we join in the simple sharing of a meal. It is also very much a celebration - of food, of diversity, of community and sharing, of creator and creation. The graces in this book are from a wide range of contributors - from Iona Community members, associates and friends, from other religious communities and houses of welcome, from humanitarian organisations, from different faiths and traditions.

Waiting requires time, and sometimes we don't know just how much time we'll have. Sometimes the time needed does not correspond with the time given. In our waiting for the Lord, time may exceed the endurance of our existence, but when we as humans exit this earth, our time stops only in the natural realm. Our spiritual time is eternal, and it keeps going What we do with our wait time, determines where we will spend our eternal time. The eternal time is eternal life with God, which is the gift of God through Jesus Christ. On the contrary side of eternal life, is eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire, with Satan. "While We Are Waiting," is a passionate witness for some and a reminder for others that we are quickly approaching judgment day, when we all will be judged. Who will judge us? Jesus Christ, Himself. Who can avoid this process? Not one human being. We will all be held accountable for what we have done during this period of waiting. Knowing this, can we say we know how to wait? The most important part of waiting for the Lord is not the waiting itself, but how we wait will be the key factor in our eternal fate. Today, We have God's mercy (another chance to get it right)- but on that final day, we will be judged on the basis of our lives, and on the content of our characters and our works. So, I ask, how will you wait?

From beloved spiritual writer and Catholic leader Gregory Floyd comes a moving meditation on the power of memory and how God is often more clearly seen when we look back. This is a book about memory, about what stays in the mind, and why. It is a book about the presence of God in our lives and the sights, sounds, words, and experiences that become unforgettable. Beginning with a single word he heard in the middle of the night-one that changed his life-this powerful memoir by Gregory Floyd asks the question: without memory, who are we? It is a meditation on beauty, marriage, family, and prayer, asking of the memories that each implants: what do they reveal? Where do they lead? -and witnessing to their potential to draw us to God.

A coming-of-age travel memoir that probes thorny spiritual questions while taking the reader on a wild ride from the deep American South to the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East. Once the golden girl of her Arkansas town, Natalie finds herself squeezed under small town shame and rejection after being kicked out of church for getting a divorce. It's a hard fall off of a sanctimonious high horse, and religious fundamentalism has left her feeling broken and stuck. But she can't shake the 'wanderlust woes' that have plagued her since childhood, so she runs away to the Middle East. As a mostly-sheltered Southerner, she struggles to adapt but is determined to be 'at home' in the world. Her journey is more than a pilgrimage, it's a peregrination: a one-way ticket to elsewhere in search of the place of her own resurrection. Within these pages is a suspenseful adventure filled with love, loss, laughter, tears, and a little bit of scandalous behavior, but at the heart of it, Natalie walks squarely into the unknown to confront the secret matters of the soul that we wrestle with at night.

Winner of the 2020 Paraclete Poetry Prize, Litany of Flights is a luminous examination of the journey of the soul, from moments of loss to moments of incandescent transformation. These poems remind us to behold the extraordinary in the ordinary, and that the secret workings of the divine occur even through the difficult: "the painful paring of your hollow bones has made you light." Drawing on the beauty of the natural world, the devastating effects of drought and wildfires, tender moments of daily experience, and lessons of the saints, the poet creates a landscape of light and darkness, with unexpected turns into divine presence and absence. Through a spiral of red-tailed hawks, the nest of a mourning dove, the parting of waters, and the ripeness of a persimmon, this shimmering collection invites the reader to singular and transfiguring flight. Litany of Flights (from the forthcoming collection) First, the winged movement, steady, forward. Scrub jays in flitting progress, hawks in predator glide, a ringing up, a knife-sharp slope down. Second, the effortless type, wind-splayed, motionless pinions in thermal recline, as the Psalmist says, blessings breeze his love even in sleep. Third, the hungry, against the gale, the destination singular and the sun dipping crimson. Fourth, the metallic, business or pleasure. Fifth, the whirring kind, all hummingbird. A picnic, apples and chocolate in the garden with roses, both flower and child. You miss it when it's gone. Sixth, a baffling flight of stairs, winding upward, passage and yet vehicle, spiraling to unseen landings-hope courses in the kaleidoscopic lights. Seventh, soar to the sun. Eighth, melt in bitter hubris. You know the story. Ninth, escape. A flight out of Egypt, a path through the sea cleared by divine hand. The times you ran, the times you were left behind in lament. Tenth, only rotting in the belly of a whale tames your stubborn turn from Nineveh. Eleventh, flights of despair and of yearning, two sides of one letting go, hard-earned release back into the wild, unbound by expectation, featherlike. Twelfth, in a moment, caught up high by the Beloved, the one making all things work together, wings, body, arch, air-caught up, like the Shulamite bride, to regions beyond aeronautical wisdom, transported in joy. See, he says, the painful paring of your hollow bones has made you light.

In this collection, poet Sarah Law presents lucid, lyrical reflections on the much-loved saint, Therese of Lisieux (1873-97), whose life and writing has been an inspiration to so many people. For Sarah Law, there is something about Therese that catches at the heart, and her poems flow from that sense of friendship and tenderness with her subject. Many of the poems meditate on events, large and small, in Therese's brief but spiritually significant life. The first section explores her childhood, and the second, her nine precious years as a Carmelite nun; years of both sweetness and suffering. Several poems are inspired by well-known photographs of Therese, some of which are included in this volume. A final section considers Therese's legacy, as her 'little way' of confidence and love became known throughout the world. Each poem may be read as an individual reflection, and as part of the larger biographical sequence.