Devotions are a part of our daily school routine because I want my children to learn about and from the Bible. Finding a good devotion book can be tough especially when you are looking for devotions for teens. The books either seem to be only surface level or go too deep so that they can't be understood by my teen. This is why I was curious to find out what the Intimate Warrior Series (Devotional Series) by Dave Wager was all about and if it would be a good fit for my tenth-grade son.

The Intimate Warrior Series by Dave Wager that I received is a set of four paperback books. This set includes: Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Deception, Beyond the Expectations, and Beyond the Resistance. Each 88-page book sells for $11.95. Each book contains 21 daily devotion readings that are the answer to a daily thought or question. Each day's readings also includes key Scripture verses, a key thought or question for the reader to meditate on, and a small area for writing responses to the questions or thoughts on the reading. Each of the four books in this set teaches about a different aspect of Christian living. The author encourages the reader to take their time with each devotional, read it, study it, and meditate on it which the author recommends would take an hour each day.

Beyond the Compass teaches about “Learning to See the Unseen.” This book is designed to help readers develop a deeper relationship with God by learning to look for Him in all things and listen for His voice and leading. This series of 21 daily devotions teaches readers to think of God as your “True North” because ultimate He is the one that should be leading your life. Beyond the Deception teaches about “Learning to Defend the Truth.” This book is designed to help readers search God's truth piece by  piece like a jigsaw puzzle and then be able to take the pieces of God's truth and fit them together to be able to stand firm in your faith and beliefs. Beyond the Expectations teaches about “Learning to Obey.” When we are obedient to God and put Him first, life won't be perfect, but we will be prepared to handle anything that comes our way. Beyond the Resistance teaches about “Learning to Face Adversity.” This book was written to help Christian leaders think through and about difficulties and hard times they may face. This book's daily devotions focus on the book of Nehemiah and learning from his trials.

I used these books with my tenth-grade son. He started by reading through Beyond the Compass. I thought this would be a great place for him to start in this series. It is important to make God your “True North” and this is definitely my desire for him. He would read each daily passage and think over the Scriptures and the devotion for the day. Then we would discuss what he gleaned from it and the compass point for the day from this book. Through reading this book we have had some great discussions about why the compass point for the day was so important and how he could apply it to his everyday life. This book also brought up some interesting points for us to dig into. On Day 10 it said that Job was the oldest book in the Bible. My son wondered if this was really true so we did some research in our study Bible and found out that it was in fact true. It was a great opportunity to show him where to look up this information for himself and how to do the digging in a study Bible.

My son finished that book and is currently working his way through Beyond the Expectations. We chose this one for him to read second because I personally think that after putting God first, you need to practice obedience to God. So this book seemed like the better option for a second book for him to read. We have used the same daily process of him reading each daily passage and thinking over the Scriptures and the devotion for the day. Then we discuss what he has learned and the daily questions. This book has questions that are more personal between him and God so he spends some time each day praying about his answers too. I have looked ahead through the other two books and we will use them much the same way. Even though Beyond the Resistance is designed for adult leaders, I think it will still be good for my son to read through and think about what the definition of a good leader is and should be. These books are good, solid devotional books. They cover Biblical ideas and concepts that everyone can use. I would recommend them for ninth grade through adults as I gleaned plenty of useful information from them too.

Product review by Cassandra Holdeman, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, November, 2018