Undaunted

1. All’s right with the world
2. In The Beginning
3. Wayne
4. Junior's Betrayal
5. High School
6. Air Force
7. New Horizons
8. Great Britain
9. The Journey Continues
10. New Beginnings
11. Wheaton And Beyond
12. Going Home
13. Summer
14. 1960
15. Engagement And Graduation
16. A Final Summer
17. Out West
18. The Call
19. The Ble Ocean

- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- Discussion Guide
- Notes
- About The Authors

Josh McDowell’s biography begins with an account of devastating car accident that should have killed him and ended his story before it had really got going. If that collision with the truck approaching from behind had pushed him into the path of the unstoppable freight train, his life would have been just another one of the many unremembered, anonymous poor brought to grief in the depression of the 1930s. Yet Josh’s flame wasn’t extinguished. And it’s from here – as his life ‘passes before his eyes’ the reviews the painful events of his childhood and youth that form the background to the man he was so influenced the man he was to become.

Now that those years are well over three quarters of a century behind us, the economic and social deprivations of the 1930s have a certain romance. The sun burnt fields, the big old American cars, the wide open spaces, home spun entertainment, deep rooted faith and solid families all have an old world charm about them. Josh leaves his readers in no doubt that life in the depression years was no fairy tale. Indeed it was barely life at all. Yes all those nostalgic features are there in the book and in the soon to be released film, but the problem with life under those conditions is that could so soon come to an end. As well as the unlooked for harshness of an economic downturn, Josh’s family suffered from the drunken violence of his father, and the abusive behaviour of their farm hands.

No wonder, then, that uppermost in the mind of Josh and his four siblings was the idea of escaping to a better life. No time here for notions of a caring God and a forgiving saviour. Quite the opposite. Josh is a young man determined to undermine and destroy with the power of his mind his own resentment. God, however, has other plans. Now a leading preacher and teacher, Josh uses his intellect, his tough upbringing and his life changing experience to change the lives of others. Perhaps the most inspiring part of his story is his reaction to those who so hurt and wronged him in the past; those who – by accident, ignorance or intent, might so easily have destroyed him in body, mind and soul. It’s the stuff of movies that the victim, now released and empowered returns to the scene of his oppression and meets out justice upon his former oppressors. Not so Josh. Yes he hunts them down – or rather seeks them out. But not take his revenge, to give his forgiveness just as God has forgiven and restored him.

“The fact is,” says Josh McDowell in his introduction to ‘Undaunted’, “no one goes through life unscathed. The biblical book of Job says that “people are born for trouble as readily as sparks fly up from a fire.” I had a lot of sparks in my life, including one life-changing spark that brought me hope. I invite you to read and consider how - with the help of One stronger than yourself - you, too, can face life undaunted.”

Undaunted - the book and an upcoming movie, chronicles the riveting true story of a young farm boy named Josh who carried unspeakable memories of an alcoholic father and a farmhand's abuse, causing him to defy God's existence. Yet God redeemed a horrible situation with his unbelievable grace. Today Josh McDowell is one of the most popular evangelists in the world who defends the reality of Jesus Christ to millions through his presentations and classic book 'More Than a Carpenter'.

Undaunted unfolds the dramatic spiritual transformation in Josh's life when he faces his past head-on and puts everything entirely in God's hands. The result is an undaunted faith, a gift freely offered to everyone who seeks it.