Around 2 years ago, I was introduced to the life and writings of Andrew Murray, a 19th century minister in South Africa whose ministry coincided with a South African prayer revival. The story of the revival is incredible, and it actually traces back to two other prayer revivals, one that started with a prayer meeting in New York in 1857 (Laymen’s Prayer Revival), and another that occurred in 1859 in a province of Northern Ireland called Ulster. All three revivals are connected, and all three are incredible stories.

But in researching these revivals, I became fascinated with the life and writings of Andrew Murray. Interestingly, Murray initially rejected the South African revival because he felt it was chaotic and disorderly. But in the months and years that followed, he began to play a primary role in aiding the discipleship of Christians in the surrounding area, notably through his writings. He went on to write over 200 books, booklets, and pamphlets for the Christians in these South African churches, spanning a wide range of topics related to discipleship, such as prayer, raising Christian children, waiting on God, etc.

My fascination with this revival and Murray’s life led me to pick up one of his most highly recognized books Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness (I wrote about it in my 2024 review of books).

I won’t retread what I’ve already written about this book, but suffice it to say I have returned to it countless times over the past year, and I keep a copy of it close at hand. I found the theme of the book so important that it planted a seed for a potential writing project of my own.

Separate from that, I’ve spent the past several years feeding my growing interest in Christian paintings, particularly the works of several 19th century Russian artists. One of these paintings, Christ in the Wilderness by Ivan Kramskoy, brought my mind to the themes in Murray’s book. The painting vividly details the humanity of Christ as he fasted 40 days in the wilderness. The painting and Murray’s book on imitating the humility of Christ seemed made for each other.

One final thread involving Bible memorization. Several years ago, I was led to commit Philippians 2:1-11 to memory, a passage that similarly focuses on imitating the complete humility of Christ. As all these threads began to converge, an idea for a book was formed.

The idea was to take these threads and write a book in the style of Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son, a book which begins with Nouwen’s own journey of discovering Rembrandt’s painting of the father and prodigal son from Jesus’ parable, and then builds into a deep reflection on being the beloved and embracing the love of God the Father. My thought was to do the same with Kramskoy’s painting, Philippians 2, and the theme of humility.

I’m excited to share the result of this, Descending to Glory: The Joy of Humiliation in Christ. The book has been a labor of love, and I’ve been able to share the writing journey with several people who have graciously taken the time to read sections of the book and share feedback along the way.

My goal for the book was to practically describe a Spirit-led journey of embracing humility. One of Murray’s points in his own book is that we often pray for humility, only to recoil from the very things that would humble us. This is why I’ve sought to describe an approach to embracing humility that is fully dependent on the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification in us. The book spends a great deal of time in Philippians 2, but it also delves into the lives and writings of various individuals like Hudson Taylor, David Brainerd, Benjamin Franklin, and yes, Andrew Murray. My hope in this has been to provide a concise, well-rounded book with Biblical exegesis, Spirit-dependence, historical perspective, and practical application.

The book will be available by August 1st in paperback, hardback, Kindle, and audiobook (I’m a big audiobook user myself!). I hope the book will be a joy for you, and more importantly, I hope it will lead you to see the greatness of Christ in humbling himself completely to raise us to glory. May we joyfully surrender to him as the Spirit does his perfecting work in us!

Stay tuned for updates — I’d love to hear from you in the meantime.

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