Book Review: Hiking For Jesus
When I heard the news that Preston Fields had written his first book I was excited. Preston and I met during my first priestly assignment at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Knoxville. Even then, Preston was a great storyteller who could easily relate his stories to his faith which he did quite often for our teens who were preparing for the sacrament of confirmation. Hiking For Jesus is another fine example of Preston’s ability to lead others to Christ through sharing small parts of his own life’s story. His new book is sure to help in the ministry he and his friend Tom Wiesner began several years ago.
Preston outlines his book around the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, using each one as a doorway to discovering the richness of our faith that can be found in every day life. He reminds his readers that being a Christian is something that must be done over the span of a lifetime.
Faith is a process. There is not one moment of perfect clarity, but infinite chances to seek Christ out in the darkness, to be touched repeatedly and, each time, to see that much more clearer.
As someone who shares the experience of having grown up Catholic in the south, I appreciated hearing about Preston’s struggle to find his identity in a culture that doesn’t fully understand many Catholic customs and many times doesn’t even consider us to be Christians. Southern Catholics can easily recognize the conversation described early on in Hiking For Jesus,
I used to get the question, “Why do you ask saints to pray for you? Can’t you just go directly to Jesus?” And the answer, of course, is sure we can. But we as a community pray for each other all the time. I hear students doing it all the time: “I’m off to take a test, pray for me.” Very rarely is the response, “Why are you asking me? Can’t you just take it to Jesus yourself?”
The strongest part of Hiking For Jesus, in my opinion, is the section of book where Preston describes the various roads that led him to ministry with teens, with abused children and with prisoners. His account describes what can happen to a person who is bold enough to pray what many of like to refer to as the dangerous prayer: Lord, send me the people no one else wants. As someone who has worked with so called “at risk” kids, I share Preston’s sentiments that many times doing so can break your heart. But what is more important is knowing this:
Every kid needs to know they are worth a broken heart. All of us are worth a broken heart.
Hiking For Jesus is a book I would recommend to anyone seeking to better understand their own walk with Jesus and the Christian community.
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