Jesus Calling: An Honest Review

I will be honest with you: when Sarah Young's Jesus Calling first became the book every Christian woman in Conway seemed to be carrying, I was not interested. Forty thousand reviews on Amazon, a padded cover in every church bookstore, and a daily reading for every single day of the year felt like a lot of hype to me. I have led the Tuesday morning women's Bible study at my church for about twelve years now, and I have watched plenty of trendy devotionals come and go. So I did what I do with any book that arrives with that much noise around it. I waited. And then, about three years ago, a woman in our group brought her copy to a Tuesday meeting and read one entry out loud, and I realized I had been confusing popularity with shallowness. I bought my own copy that week, read it every morning at 6 AM in my recliner by the living room window, and I have now been through the full year of entries more than once. This is the review I wish someone had given me before I picked it up: what the book actually is, what it is not, and the things nobody tells you about living with it for a full year.

How I've Used It

My routine is the same almost every morning. I wake up around 5:45, pour a cup of coffee, and settle into the recliner by the window while the house is still quiet. Glenn does not stir until seven, so that first hour is mine. I read the day's entry, then I read the scripture references at the bottom in my own Bible, and then I sit with whatever came up. Some mornings that means writing two sentences in a notebook. Some mornings it means just thinking. The whole thing takes fifteen to twenty minutes, and it has become the most dependable part of my day. One morning last February, the entry was about releasing plans I could not control, and I sat there for ten extra minutes because it had landed squarely on a conversation Glenn and I had the night before. I wrote the date in the margin, which I almost never do. That is when I understood the book was working as a conversation starter, not just a reading assignment.

The format matters more than I expected. Each entry is written as if Jesus is speaking directly to the reader, in first person, and each one ends with a short list of scripture references instead of printing the verses in full. That second part turned out to be the key for me. Because the verses are not printed right there in the entry, I have to get up and find them in my Bible, and the act of hunting for a passage keeps me from reading on autopilot. On days when I am tired or distracted, that small physical step pulls me back into the moment. I have heard other women say the same thing. The book does not do the work for you. It hands you a starting point and expects you to bring your Bible along.

I should also say plainly that I have not read every entry at the exact moment it was assigned. Life gets in the way. There have been weeks when I fell three days behind and then caught up on a Saturday morning with a second cup of coffee. The book does not punish you for that. The dates are printed at the top of each entry, but nothing bad happens if you read February in March. I have told the women in my study group to treat the dates as gentle suggestions, not a contract.

What Nobody Tells You Before You Buy It

Here is the thing I wish someone had told me: Jesus Calling is written as if Jesus is speaking in first person, and that makes some thoughtful Christians genuinely uncomfortable. Sarah Young says plainly in the introduction that she wrote down what she believed she was receiving during prayer and meditation, and that the entries are her own words, not the words of Scripture. I believe she is sincere about that. I also know that the format is not for everybody. A woman in our Tuesday group, who is the most faithful reader I know, told me she could not get past the first person voice. It felt too close to putting words in Jesus's mouth for her, and she quietly set the book aside. She is a retired schoolteacher who reads through the entire Bible every eighteen months, so nobody could accuse her of being lazy about her faith. She was not rejecting the message. She was protecting something precious to her, and I admire that. I respect her decision completely. If that is how you feel, this is not the devotional for you, and you should not force yourself to read it just because everyone else does.

The book does not do the work for you. It hands you a starting point and expects you to bring your Bible along.

The second thing nobody tells you is that the entries are short. Some of them are barely a page. If you are used to the longer, essay-style devotionals from writers like Charles Spurgeon or Oswald Chambers, the brevity can feel thin at first. I remember thinking during my first week that the whole book felt a little too easy. But I have come to believe the shortness is the point. A busy mother of three can read an entry while her coffee brews. A woman recovering from surgery can read one without straining her eyes. The book is designed for people with real lives, not for people with uninterrupted hours of study time.

The third thing is the one that surprised me most. The entries are not all warm and comforting. Yes, there is plenty of peace and rest language, and that is what most people quote. But there are also entries about confession, about letting go of control, about waiting when you want answers, about enduring hardship without understanding it. The book has a quiet backbone to it. It does not just pat you on the head and tell you everything is fine. It tells you, over and over, to bring your fears and your failures to Jesus and to trust him with the outcome. That is a much harder message than the marketing suggests.

The Writing, the Length, and the Daily Rhythm

Sarah Young's writing style is simple and direct, and I mean that as a compliment. She does not use ornate language or try to impress you with vocabulary. The sentences are short. The images are ordinary: light, paths, cups, sheep, shepherds, children. Some readers find this repetitive, and I understand why. After three hundred days, certain phrases do start to feel familiar. But I have also watched these same simple words land exactly where they need to land. On a hard morning, when I am worried about one of our grandchildren or frustrated with a situation I cannot fix, I do not need poetry. I need someone to remind me, in plain words, that God is with me and that I am not carrying the day alone. One morning last fall, I read an entry that used the word 'peace' four times on a single page, and I caught myself smiling at it. A few hours later, in the church office, I had to calm down a volunteer who was upset about a scheduling mistake, and that same plain word was the one I reached for. Simple language has a way of staying with you.

The daily rhythm is the real product here. A 365-day devotional works differently from a book you read cover to cover in a weekend. It becomes a habit, and habits shape you slowly. I noticed somewhere around the fourth month that I was starting to think about the morning reading before I even got out of bed. The book had become a fixture, like the coffee cup or the recliner. That is not magic. That is just what happens when you put the same small thing in the same place at the same time every day. I can tell you the exact morning it happened. It was a Tuesday in late April, and I woke up before the alarm because I was already thinking about what the reading might say. That felt strange and wonderful at the same time. A book had become a meeting place with God. If you are the kind of person who benefits from structure, this book gives you structure in a very gentle way.

One practical note about the physical book itself. The padded hardcover edition is the one I own, and it has held up beautifully through three years of daily use. The cover still looks good, the pages lie flat, and the ribbon marker is still attached. The pages are thick enough that the ink does not bleed through, and the ribbon has stayed sewn in place through all three years. I have dropped it, carried it in a tote bag, and read it with coffee in hand, which is honestly the most dangerous thing you can do to a book. It has survived all of it. I have bought this edition twice as a gift since then. If you are buying this as a gift, the padded hardcover is the version I would choose.

What It Does Well

First, it is accessible. You do not need a seminary degree or a study system to use this book. You open it to today's date and you read. That sounds simple, but it is rarer than you would think in Christian publishing. Many devotionals assume a level of familiarity with theology or church history that a new believer simply does not have yet. Sarah Young does not make that assumption. The book meets you where you are.

Second, it is honest about suffering. I have read entries that could have been written for a woman in the middle of chemotherapy, or for a man who just lost his job, or for a mother grieving a child. The book does not pretend that following Jesus makes life easy. It acknowledges pain and then points, again and again, toward peace that is not dependent on circumstances. One winter, a woman in our group was caring for her mother at the end of her life, and she told me that the entry for the morning her mother passed was about release and rest. She said it felt like the book had known. That is a message our Tuesday group has needed at different times, and the book has been there for all of them.

Third, it works well in a group. We have used Jesus Calling as the common thread for a summer study twice now. Each woman reads the day's entry on her own, and then on Tuesday mornings we talk about the entries that stood out to us. The short format is perfect for this. There is no homework burden, no long chapter to feel guilty about skipping. The conversation comes easily because everyone is reading the same small thing every day.

Where It Falls Short

I want to be fair, so here are the weaknesses. The first person voice, as I said, will genuinely bother some readers. If you are theologically precise, you may find yourself editing the entries in your head as you read them. I do that sometimes. The entries are not Scripture, and they should not be treated as if they are. The book works best when you hold it loosely and measure everything against what you already know from the Bible. There was one entry in the spring about forgiveness where I wished the author had quoted the verse directly instead of paraphrasing it, because the paraphrase softened the point. I found the reference, read it in my own Bible, and the meaning came through sharper. That is the right way to use this book, but it does require you to do some of the work.

Second, the writing can feel repetitive over a full year. Certain themes and phrases come back again and again. For some readers that will feel like reinforcement. For others it will feel like the book is stuck in a loop. I landed somewhere in between. By November I was ready for the year to end, and then, a few weeks into January, I found myself starting again with fresh eyes. I remember one stretch in August where three entries in a single week used the same image of a path in the woods, and I wrote 'again?' in the margin. Then, the following week, I needed that exact image on a morning when I felt lost. The book has a way of doing that. The repetition is both the book's strength and its weakness, depending on the day.

Third, the entries are not dated to the church calendar. If you are someone who likes to follow Advent, Lent, and the feast days, this book will not help you do that. It is a calendar-year book, not a church-year book. That is not a flaw so much as a limitation, but it is worth knowing before you buy.

Who This Is For

This book is for the woman who wants a daily quiet time but does not know where to start. It is for the busy mother who has three minutes before the kids wake up. It is for the new believer who finds long theological chapters intimidating. It is for the longtime believer who has fallen out of the habit of daily reading and needs a gentle way back in. It is for the small group leader who wants a shared reading that will not overwhelm her members. If any of those descriptions sound like you, Jesus Calling is worth a genuine look.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if the first person voice will be a stumbling block for you. There is no shame in that, and forcing yourself through a book that makes you uncomfortable is not spiritual growth. Skip it if you are looking for deep, verse-by-verse Bible study; this book is a companion to that kind of study, not a replacement for it. And skip it if you are tired of devotionals altogether and need something with more structure and theology. There are other books that will serve you better. I have recommended several of them to women in our group over the years, and I have never once thought less of a woman for setting this one aside.