Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

This is a review of the book " God on Mute " by Pete Greig. It is a non-fiction Christian about what happens when God meets your prayers with silence. What do you do? This book is of interest not only to Christians, but also to atheists struggling with the question of "If God is good, why do bad things happen?" (I have some information about that question here ). Interspersing theological research with his own personal experience with unanswered prayers for healing for his wife suffering a serious medical condition, Pete Greig does an amazing job answering one of the toughest questions of Christianity. Everyone can relate to this book and these difficult questions.  One thing I particularly loved about this book is that Pete Greig is not trying to assign blame to the situation. He explains first that some prayers God will not answer for reasons which might become clear upon inspection (e.g. 2 people are praying for opposite things - one for rain, the other for sunsh...

Despite all of the bad things that are happening in the word, we do have the power to choose our own thoughts.  Yes, it's true that it's really hard to choose positive thoughts when we are busy, or have a lot of responsibilities, or deal with a lot of stress daily. But choosing positive thoughts is a habit we need to start if we haven't already.  If we instead decided to wait until the "perfect day" for those thoughts, when we are on vacation with no responsibilities.... hold on, that sort of thing doesn't exist! Exactly. We are responsible for choosing positive thoughts even in situations when it's easier not to . The Holy Spirit dwells within us, and wouldn't it be wonderful to let the Holy Spirit reside in a place that is beautiful on the inside?  If it's a mess of worry (and yes, I've been there, and sometimes keep going there!) then won't it be a little hard for us to hear the Holy Spirit? And wouldn't it be hard for the Holy Spiri...

Before reading the Bible, I thought it would instantly make everything immediately clear.  Yes, The Bible gives us the best and closest understanding we can about God and Jesus - better than any other book, any blog, any speaker can.  But, it is still limited by the bounds of language. There are some things that are difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to express with mere language.  What we need to do is remember that we're like babies trying to learn calculus.  We need to slow down and not make any more assumptions than are absolutely necessary.  Essentially, the Bible is a message from God.  It is the most important message he has for us.  A message, by its very definition, is sent through an intermediary. It is not the same as a direct conversation with God.  (This is why prayer is also important if you want to find out more about God). Does this diminish the importance of the Bible? Of course not! God evidently fel...

I have read the fiction book "The Shack" by William Paul Young (check out its website at http://www.theshackbook.com/ ). I actually read it as part of a study at church, so it was not something I would have thought of reading otherwise, but I was very glad I did. As a bottom line, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone, but especially those who: have had or are having bad experiences with the church or organized religion, are wondering why bad things happen if God is good, are unable to acknowledge God in the middle of a personal tragedy, are struggling with forgiveness. I admit I had some reservations initially, it has been a controversial book. I am reviewing here only the book and not its background, but for those who are interested in more, click here for a balanced review from USA Today giving some of the book's history and author's background, as well as comments from some Christian church leaders. The reservations I had were dispelled by the t...