Daddy’s Delight Blog Tour with Dr. Karia Bunting

KARIA BUNTING is an expository Bible teacher whose mission is to communicate the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ so that people are saved, and disciples are developed. She is the founder of Focused Forward Ministries, a communication and media ministry, and a member of several community and ministry organizations. She also partners with her husband, George, in his management & financial consulting company.

Karia received her master’s degree from Dallas Theological Seminary and a doctorate from Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary. She’s currently receiving a second doctorate from the University of Texas. She serves as an adjunct professor at Dallas Baptist University and enjoys ministering the Word and its’ principles through her lecture series and power lunches held throughout the year.

Karia and George, her husband of 26 years, live in Dallas, Texas where she teaches the Word weekly in the women’s Bible study at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. Mother of three children, Karia is also a mentor to many young women. She enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with family and friends.

Visit her Dr. Karia online at http://focusedforwardministries.org/.

Dr. Karia, tell us about Daddy’s Delight: Embracing Your Divine Design

Daddy’s Delight: Embracing Your Divine Design tells women that God designed them, He adores them just like they are, and that that they are His masterpiece, His poem. Made in the image of God, they are designed to exercise authority, and are equipped to be all that they were designed to be.

The problem is that although we as women desire to live a victorious life, we don’t know how to get there. You and I want to accomplish our destiny, but life keeps getting in the way. You know you were created for more, but there is enough stress just where you are. Maybe you are lonely or overwhelmed. Maybe business is going so great that you are exhausted trying to keep up, or possibly business is not going so great and you are about to starve! The scenarios of life swirl around you. Your daughter knows that she is not supposed to eat in her room, what is that food doing in there? Since the last layoff, you have to do the work for three people, and the pressure is building because you just can’t do it and get home at a reasonable hour. You are working hard, and the child you are paying all tuition for is acting like she doesn’t have a mama. And then, on top of that, your son’s teenage friend spilled red kool-aid on your beautiful beige carpet.

For some of you, that relationship is what spilled red kool-aid on you…you thought it would last forever, but it didn’t. Now you are asking yourself the question, “How in the world can I start over from here?” Sometimes the mate is absent – or altogether too present (and not always acting right). You are tired, stretched, frustrated, and silently or audibly crying out for answers. After all that you are exhausted, and you look in the mirror at the end of the day feeling, “What is wrong with me that people treat me this way?” “Why can’t I get it together?” “Can even God fix this mess?” “ There has got to be a better way.”

The real question you and I are asking ourselves is, “Who am I now, and How do I maximize my life from this place?” This book is designed to answer that question.

How did you come up with ideas for this book?

When I was working on my Doctorate in Theology, I was drawn to scripture about authority and identity. I began to make notes about what interested me. Over time, I compiled quite a few notes on the subject. Then, one day my pastor was preaching, and it occurred to me that maybe my notes had some value. I did some exegetical work, and applied what I had learned to women. Then I looked at our lives from different angles. I always started with the Word of God. But then I applied my own experience and the experiences of others. What comes out of the whole process is a book that is both real and helpful

Did you have to do quite a bit of research for the book?

After my doctorate, not as much as you would think. But now, it took me 7 years to get my doctorate! So I did enough research then!

From there it was mainly compiling, organizing, and making it non-academic. It took a few drafts to get it to the place where it reflected my every day life, and the life of other women. Teaching a weekly Bible study at my home church helped, because in women’s ministry, you live among people who love Christ and are learning to experience His victory.

What do you hope readers will learn and discover from reading Daddy’s Delight: Embracing Your Divine Design?

I hope that they discover themselves – who God created them to be. I hope they discover that God loves them, and that they really are royalty. I hope they discover that they already have God’s favor. I hope that they discover what God’s Word says to them at each stage of life. Whether married or unmarried, caretaking or lonely, struggling with temptation or struggling with self-esteem, a career mom or a mom-at-home, in the secular workplace or in ministry, God has specific instructions He would like to tell us so that we can maximize our experience. This book shares God’s mind so God’s people can maximize their divine design.

Okay, a not-so-fun question. How important are reviews to you as a writer.

It is important to me that people know the book exists. It can’t help anybody that doesn’t know about it. Let’s put it this way…. I never cared what grade I got in school. That’s because when I went to school, it wasn’t for the grade. I was a grown woman! I wanted to get what they were teaching, not earn a grade. In this book, I gave the Lord all I had on the subject. My goal is to throw crowns at His feet. I don’t think He got a dirty, shoddy crown this time, I wouldn’t give Him one. He has been too good to me for that. I gave Him my best, because He deserves it. He has put a lot in me, so I owe Him a lot. Now I am trying to pay my debt.

If the reviews say I’m a bad writer, I care about that! Because that means I don’t communicate well and I need to work on that. I need to know that kind of thing.

Now, if the reviews say they don’t agree with my theology, I can accept that as well. It should be that way sometimes. Most of my family are theologians, and we differ theologically. I graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary and am a Biblical theologian. My two closest cousins graduated from Harvard Divinity, and one is a womanist theologian and teaches at a Methodist Seminary, the other a theologian committed to the principles of theology taught at Harvard, and who is the head of a religion department at a historically black college. We have the greatest debates at my kitchen table – we discuss Niebuhr and Bultmann, Bock and Walvoord. They cite me in their more academic books as a Biblical theologian.

A theology student could have a ball sitting at my table eating bar-b-que!

Another one of my cousins graduated from Union Theological Seminary and started a seminary in Indiana. My youngest cousin is at Yale School of Divinity. My grandfather was a Presbyterian elder, and my grandmother was a life-long A.M.E. My mother was an A.M.E. turned Baptist who never gave up her Methodist roots! My father and his only brother were both Baptist ministers. I have two cousins who are pastors in the Apostolic tradition. We have a ball when we get together. My cousins can cook for real! We don’t talk about theology all the time though, we mainly talk about projects God is calling us to at the time.

We differ on a few things, but not on how to live biblically. One of my cousins came over and said she and her husband read the chapter on marriage, and are implementing it. Now her husband is always asking, “Can we get rid of these children and go have some fun!” This book is about biblical living. And biblical living based on the Word of God works, no matter what your theological tradition.



About the Book

In Daddy’s Delight, Dr. Karia Bunting reminds women that they are God’s workmanship, His masterpiece, His “poema”. That God has intricately woven together every fiber of their being and created each one special and unique. That God, having completed His work of art, gave her to mankind as a gift.

Evident in this great care God took in fashioning woman is the importance and value of each one. So why do so many women struggle with God’s design, wishing they could change just this or that one thing about themselves?

Dr. Bunting challenges each reader to accept and embrace the truth that, regardless of what season of life she’s in, she is God’s masterpiece-not her own work of art. When God sees her, He sees His beautiful creation. A creation that yes, has some wrinkles needing to be smoothed out and yet, is one in whom is His delight to love to perfection.

View the blog tour schedule and read an excerpt at
http://bit.ly/DaddysDelight.

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