Couple team up to write book of daily devotionals
Husband and wife Rupert and Glenette “Red” Hinds are excited to share their devotional book There’s Power in Relationship: Working Toward a Christ-Centred Relationship with the Bermuda community.
After two to three years of writing and compiling past inspirational messages, Mr and Mrs Hinds’s book became officially available in January 2024 and is now ready to let the public know.
Discussing how the book came to be, Mr Hinds said: “I was a Sunday school teacher, and I was living abroad for the past 15 to 20 years. When I moved to Bermuda in 2018, I decided to keep in contact with my Sunday school class.
“I used to send them day messages, messages of encouragement that were scripture-based, and I did it regularly. When Covid hit, I was cut off from everybody; we all went on lockdown, and there wasn’t much that anybody could do in terms of interacting with people.
“It was a little difficult, even though I could still send e-mails. While I was still sending those messages, the Holy Spirit told me to put in a book. Those were the words I kept hearing.”
He continued: “So I spoke to my wife, and I said we got to write a book; it is going to be a devotional; that was the frame of reference I wanted to draw from to encourage my fellow students and fellow Christians.
“My wife said it was a good idea; when we started, we had a lot to pull from because I had sent many messages in the past, and I kept them. We started pulling from all messages and compiling them and decided we had almost enough to do a year's devotional.
“We had to write some more, so I said let's do 365 days because I think we can write more until we reach the point.
“When we had a manuscript, we sent it off to EuroPress, and they accepted it, and we had it published. It was born out of a desire to continue reaching my students and more people.
“So that’s my goal now, which is to get the devotional into as many hands as possible because I believe it can be a blessing to those who purchase it.”
Writing the book was a “fun but tedious” process of writing for over 365 days to have a daily devotional for each day of the year. Writing this book together was a source of further “development” for Mr and Mrs Hinds.
Mr Hinds said: “Every day that we wrote, we prayed and asked God to give us the words to say so that we would reflect the heart of God instead of putting our basic interception on things.
“It developed our relationship to be even closer with God and our relationship to be closer with each other. Because we were working towards a unified effort of spreading and sharing the gospel with others, it impacted us that way, and we hope and pray it will impact others the same way.”
Discussing what the reader can expect as they experience the devotional, Mr Hinds said: “The book is called There’s Power in Relationship. There is a subtitle that says working towards a Christ-centred relationship. It is a book of 365 daily devotionals designed to bring you closer to God, develop a relationship with Him, and get to know what God’s heart is for you as you enter into a relationship with Him.”
He added: “The common thread is relationship; the book is tied together with that theme. It is diverse in its scripture. We draw from the Old and New Testaments.
“As we were writing, as every day unfolded, we would talk about different scriptures that inspired us. We wanted to make it not so theologically deep that younger people couldn’t understand it, but we also wanted people to desire to research the passage for the day.
“I am of the mind that if you read something or you don’t understand it, or you have a question of what it means in terms of what I’m saying, you would research it, look it up for yourself, and decide on whether or not you agree with what was written. It causes people to go deeper.
“It’s a book with a day and a date but not a year. It's 365 days; if you purchase the book, you can use it for years repeatedly because the word of God is inexhaustible, and there is always something new that you can take from something that you read over again.”
With the consumer in mind and desiring the gospel to be affordable, their book is available in two formats: e-book and hardback.
Leaving the community with a word of encouragement, Mr Hinds quotes Proverbs 3: 5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
He added: “That is something my father, as a pastor, always said was a trifecta for victorious living. It has always stuck with me. So that would be the main inspiration to give God a chance, and it will enrich your life.”
• For more information about the book, clickhere