The Grand Weaver (2007) (edit title/settings)

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Characters/People edit see section history

• John Howard: Lost his wife in 1775, while grieving her, he learned of a need for help in Portugal following a catastrophic earthquake and committed to go. On the way to Portugal, the ship he was on was seized by the French and he was briefly thrown into horrific prison conditions. Upon his release, he took on the cause of prison reform.
• Christ: Jesus Christ, son of God, sent from God to live among humans and redeem humankind from sin. Christ did this by taking all sin upon himself and dying a sacrificial death on the cross.
• Paul: An apostle, founded a number of churches, several of his letters to these churches survive in our New Testament. Originally a Pharisee named Saul, he persecuted Christians until an encounter on the road to Damascus converted him.
• Peter: A friend of the author's, a successful businessman who, while visiting another friend in South Africa, witnesses a hit and run car accident.
• Margie: Author's wife.
• David: Old Testament King chosen by God. Writer of many of the Psalms where he poured his heart out to God.
• Matthew: An apostle, former tax collector, writer of the Gospel of Matthew (which was written to Jews).
• Michael: An archangel.
• Adam: First man, created by God.
• Hannah: Model of persistent prayer in the Bible.
• MacDonald: A Scottish clan slaughtered at Glencoe by the Campbells in 1692.
• Moses: Old Testament man called by God to go to Pharoah regarding releasing the Israelites. Came up with a number of excuses as to why he was not the right person to go.
• Thomas Merton: Trappist Monk and author who discourses on the mystery of Communion.
• F. W. Boreham: Wrote 2 essays that helped this book's author clarify thinking about a "divine call".
• Daniel: Old Testament Bible Character who refused to worship anyone but God.
• God: The Grand Weaver--as creator, God weaves a plan for each life.
• Naomi: Author's daughter who works with the world's destitute and with those trapped in sex-trafficking. She wears a black pearl pendant that reminds her that each person she works with is flawed but special.
• Bodintr Bain: Nicknamed Tu. A weaver in Thailand.
• Job: An upright man who serves as an example of how to work through pain and suffering. His story is told in an Old Testament book of the Bible by the same name.
• Stuart: A colleague of Zacharias who is from Scotland.
• Dwight Gooden: A promising pitcher in Major League Baseball, won many awards and his team won the World Series. Spiraled into drug use and served a prison term subsequent to winning the World Series. Story used by author to show that worldly success does not equal happiness.
• Francis Thompson: His father wanted him to be a physician, but Thompson repeatedly failed entry exams. He is famous for writing poetry.
• Joseph: A beloved son whose older brothers were jealous and sold him into slavery. He worked his way up in the Palace to become the right hand man and was able to save his family during a famine. God gave him the ability to interpret dreams so that he could predict the famine that was coming.
• Robert Murray McCheyne: Pastor of St. Peter's in Dundee--had many skills, died at age 29.
• C.S. Lewis: English author
• Thomas: Disciple who was not with the rest when Jesus first appeared to them after his resurrection. Often referred to as Doubting Thomas since the Bible records that he said he would not believe until he could touch Jesus.
• Oscar Wilde: name synonymous with hedonism and flamoyancy, later wrote "De Profundis"
• Peter: An apostle, denied Jesus three times after his arrest, was with Jesus at the time of the tranfiguration (Moses and Elijah).
• Koos Fietje: A friend of the author's during his undergraduate days, a tall and determined Dutchman. Tender-hearted and fearless. Married Colleen, served as missionary to Thailand.

Quotes edit see section history

• “From science fiction to philosophy to fairy tales, we dream of being able to make ourselves invisible at will, sometimes for good reasons but sometimes for all of the wrong ones.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Every time we make something artificial to duplicate what we have or had naturally, we once more recognize the intricate nature of the design, even with its weaknesses.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “A calling is simply God's shaping of your burden and beckoning you to your service to him in the place and pursuit of his choosing.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “A call may not necessarily feel attractive to you, but it will tug on your soul in an inescapable way, no matter how high the cost of following it may be.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “God often reinforces our faith after we trust him, not before.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “The purpose of prayer and of God's call in your life is not to make you number one in the world's eyes, but to make Him number one in your life. His calling is perfect, and he has a specific place for each one. Every member of the body has a particular role, and we find our fulfillment in filling that role.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “'Lesser' powers behind the scenes prop up the majestic.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “Someone who stands under the bright lights of history will never, in God's eyes, outshine the humble attractiveness of the one who humbly serves God.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “When you put your trust in Godly men and women, you never walk alone.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “Somewhere, somehow, we have been led to believe that music is the centerpiece of worship. It isn't. It is included in "praise", one of the five expressions of worship. The clearing of the platform in order to accommodate the musicians and the displacement of everything else in order to facilitate the music set would lead us to believe that because we have sung, we have worshiped. We haven't--not necessarily anyway.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “Is it possible for us to be so swept up by the music and the art of worship that we lose the message and the guidelines on how to worship? Teaching must become the center of worship again, and the ideas that shape our expressions must be biblically induced and shaped.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “A student stood up and shouted at me, "Everything in life is meaningless!" We exchanged line for line, and he always came back with the same retort: "Everything in life is meaningless!" Finally I assured him that he could not possible mean it, for the simple reason that I assumed that he assumed that what he was saying was meaningful--and if what he was saying was meaningful, then everything was not meaningless. On the other hand, if everything was meaningless, what he had just said was meaningless too, and therefore, in effect, he had said nothing.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “Home is where I am loved just for who I am, not for my name or how I preach or what books I have written--but just for being me.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “In the end, our identities will be with God, and our personalities will be sublimely consummated to the purpose designed for each one of us.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “Johann Sebastian Bach once said that the only purpose for music should be the glory of God and the re-creation of the human spirit. What Bach said of music will one day be seen as true for all of life. We will be "re-created" and all the threads of our earthly life will come together for the design that we will experience in heaven.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “Fix your tender heart and your faithful mind on the cross of Jesus, and through it, see the world according to God's pattern.”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “A constant striving to be number one is often the very thing that ultimately destroys a person. Such a pursuit can never deliver the fulfillment you seek. A professional athlete or ballplayer has a genius all his or her own, and it is to be admired. But we make a huge mistake in taking our cue from competitive sports and applying the guidelines that govern success in sports to the way in which we measure success in other ares of life. When we define 'success' in such narrow terms, we allow pride and the corrupt desires it fosters to lead us down blind alleys and off steep cliffs. Success is about much more than attracting envious peers and an adoring public. True success comes in finding and living out God's design for your life”

  Ravi Zacharias

• “Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God or takes away your relish for spiritual things; in short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the Spirit, then that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself”

  Susanna Wesley

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Jesus does not offer to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.

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• God the Grand Weaver seeks those with tender hearts so that he can put his imprint on them. Your hurts and your disappointments are part of that design, to shape your heart and the way you feel about reality. The hurts you live through will always shape you. There is no other way.

  Highlighted by 103 Kindle customers

• To allow God to be God we must follow him for who he is and what he intends, and not for what we want or what we prefer.

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• “Son, whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things; in short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the Spirit, then that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself.”

  Highlighted by 92 Kindle customers

• A calling is simply God’s shaping of your burden and beckoning you to your ser vice to him in the place and pursuit of his choosing.

  Highlighted by 87 Kindle customers

• Only if you are willing to pray sincerely for God’s will to be done and are willing to live the life apportioned to you will you see the breathtaking view of God that he wants you to have, through the windows he has placed in your life. You cannot always live on the mountaintop, but when you walk through the valley, the memory of the view from the mountain will sustain you and give you the strength to carry you through.

  Highlighted by 82 Kindle customers

• Faith is a thing of the mind. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will flounder on the high seas of purposelessness, drowning in the currents and drifting further into nothingness.

  Highlighted by 78 Kindle customers

• Redemption precedes morality, and not the other way around. While every moral law ever given to humanity provides a set of rules to abide by in order to avoid punishment or some other retribution, the moral law in the Bible hangs on the redemption of humanity provided by God.

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• God reinforces his call as we respond to his nod. If we were to see the final design in prospect, we would find ourselves act ing on the basis of self-love and pragmatism — and then, who would need faith? God often reinforces our faith after we trust him, not before.

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• The purpose of prayer and of God’s call in your life is not to make you number one in the world’s eyes, but to make him number one in your life. His calling is perfect, and he has a specific place for each one. Every member of the body has a particular role, and we find our fulfillment in filling that role. This leads to the second significant clue — the willingness to be outshone while shining for God. Humility is the touchstone of serving God.

  Highlighted by 23 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• India: Where the author grew up.
• Thailand: Location of a weaving company that employs special needs people.
• Glencoe: Located in Scotland, it was the site of the massacre of the MacDonalds by the Campbells.
• England: Home to many authors of faith, including CS Lewis.
• Egypt: Moses was born and raised in Egypt. Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt.
• Bethlehem: Location of Jesus's birth.
• Wittenberg, Germany: Home of Martin Luther. The author visited Luther's home and relates a lesson learned from that visit.

Organizations edit see section history

• Pharisees: Jewish sect and leaders who stressed the Jewish laws.
• Sadducees: Jewish sect.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Saori: A Japanese weaving technique

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Grand Design: There is a grand design to each life. Sometimes we're on the wrong side of the weaving and seeing the knots instead of the pattern that those knots are forming.
• Find your dream and follow it: Fulfillment is not found in following what others think you should do, you need to discover what you are passionate about and use that as your basis.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Ravi Zacharias (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 248.4

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Christianity › Christian Living

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history