Devotions for the Fall: Celebrate the Harvest Season with Gratitude and Joy is a 40-day seasonal devotional from Thomas Nelson, published in August 2020.
Two things the old review got wrong
It is not a men’s book. This page used to open by addressing Christian men wrestling with spiritual apathy and call this “a Christian men’s book.” It is nothing of the kind. It is a general-audience seasonal devotional, and in practice it is a gift book, the sort of thing bought for someone in October.
It contains recipes. Genuinely. Alongside the forty devotions you get recipes and suggestions for fall traditions. That is not a criticism, it is simply what the book is, and it tells you more about the intended reader than anything in the old review did. Nobody buys a devotional with a pumpkin bread recipe in it expecting a discipleship resource for a men’s group.
We are being blunt about this because a man who bought it on the strength of the previous description would have opened it and immediately known he had been sold something else.
What is actually inside
Forty devotions, each pairing a Scripture reading with a short reflection on an autumn theme and tying it back to ordinary life. Each is matched with a prayer of thanksgiving and a quotation. Harvest, gratitude, the turn of the season, and Thanksgiving are the recurring notes.
There is no individual author. It is credited to Thomas Nelson Gift Books, which is the publisher’s imprint for exactly this category. That is normal for a compiled gift devotional and is worth knowing rather than worrying about, but it does mean there is no single voice or theological perspective driving it.
The writing is light. The reflections are short. It is designed to be read in three or four minutes with coffee, and it does that well.
What we removed
Two quotations attributed to readers, neither verifiable, and a section reporting how men “in our community” were transformed by it. Also gone is the quotation “Gratitude turns what we have into enough,” which is a widely circulated saying usually attributed to Melody Beattie and which we could not confirm appears in this book at all.
The claim that it contains reflective questions suited to group discussion is also out. What is confirmed is devotions, Scripture, prayers, quotations, recipes, and tradition ideas.
Who it is actually for
Someone who likes to mark the seasons and wants a short daily reading through October and November. It works well as a gift, particularly for a parent or grandparent, and the recipes and traditions material makes it a reasonable thing to leave on a kitchen counter for a family to pick up.
It is the wrong book for a man looking for substance, for a men’s group, or for anyone wanting to be challenged. There is no weight here and it is not trying to have any. Judged as a pleasant seasonal gift book it is fine. Judged as discipleship it was never in the running.
If gratitude is the thing you actually want to work on, that is a serious subject and there are serious books on it. This is not one of them, and it would be doing you no favors to pretend otherwise.
Devotions for the Fall on Amazon