God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?

“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” has become a very popular statement to use in talking about God to non-Christians. It sounds really nice. I am concerned however, that the second part of it may not be a very biblical or helpful way of talking about the Christian life.

Much of the time when I hear talk of God having a wonderful plan for people’s lives, Jeremiah 29:11 is quoted. I have only heard the verse taught in context one time that I can recall. That is unfortunate because the verse needs its context to be properly interpreted. It isn’t written in the context of providing general promises to all believers everywhere. It is part of a longer section of scripture in which God makes some specific promises and instructions regarding a specific situation facing some of his people. We are not those people in that situation. We might be able to make some conclusions about God’s will and plan for us from other parts of scripture, but this isn’t a good place to be looking.

In Romans 8:28 we are told that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. The thing we need to keep in mind here is that God’s idea of our good is very often going to be different to ours. When we tell people that God has a wonderful plan for their life, they tend to assume things like that their lives will be happy, exciting or comfortable. This theology can cause a great deal of pain when it collides with the reality of what God sometimes lets us go through for what he knows to be our own good- becoming more Christ-like. Sometimes God lets us go though hard things or even just boring things for our own good. Some believers will face persecution or poverty. By giving people false ideas about how wonderful following God will make their lives, we risk producing false converts who are “believing” so they’ll get the life improvement and discouraging genuine believers who are going through unexpected difficulties. We owe people better than to mislead them.

Overall, I think the “God has a wonderful plan for your life” line risks disrespecting the bible by badly interpreting it and deceiving people by giving them inappropriately high expectations.

Book review: Donald Miller- Father fiction

Father Fiction
Donald Miller
Buy- Amazon, Book depository, Koorong, christianaudio

In Father Fiction, Donald Miller writes about the struggles of growing up without a father and what he has learned from it. The book is an updated and expanding version of one of his earlier books, To Own A Dragon.

I was not in the target demographic for this book (those that grew up without fathers) but still found it to be a very interesting read. Miller is very honest about how the lack of a father in his life impacted him. I did tend to wonder though if his ideas about how much having a father improves things were somewhat overstated. Certainly having a good father is very valuable but I'm not sure its the cure-all he sometimes made it sound.

In addition to discussing fatherlessness, Miller shares a lot of wisdom on topics like love, family and work that he has learned on his bumpy life journey. Much of the advice is applicable regardless of your family situation growing up. He also reflects a lot on what it means to have God as our father. I was often challenged by what he had to say and will probably read it again to better understand the material.

I "read" this book in audiobook format. The conversational style of the book makes it a good choice for audio and it was narrated well. It tends to follow a similar narrative style to his other books like Blue Like Jazz.

Regardless of whether you had a good father, a bad father or no father in your life, I think there's things you can learn from this book.



Review copy provided by christianaudio.com

Featured song: Stan Walker- Unbroken

Unless you're Australian or New Zealander you probably won't have heard of Stan Walker before but this song is well worth giving a listen.

Photos: Switchfoot in Melbourne

Taken at The Billboard in Melbourne, Australia on 22 April 2010

Book review: Richard Stearns- The Hole in Our Gospel

The Hole in Our Gospel 
Richard Stearns

Buy: christianaudio, amazon, koorong
In The Hole in Our Gospel, world vision CEO Richard Stearns encourages Christians to embrace and live out a fuller understanding of the gospel that takes into account our responsibilities to the poor.

It took me a while to start liking the book. In the opening section he shares how he came to faith and to helping the poor and he argues the biblical case for why we must care for the poor. It wasn’t bad content but it stretched on a bit too long. Once the book moved into what is going wrong in the world and how Christians can make a difference the book became much more engaging. It was inspiring to read of average Christians who are making a big difference in the lives of the poor. He has a lot to say on the issue of faith verses works. I thought it was generally theologically sound and appropriately applied, although in a few spots some scriptures were maybe stretched a touch far.

I think the message of this book is one that the Christian community needs to hear. I recommend it.



Review copy provided by christianaudio.com

Photos: in the garden

Book review: Shane Claiborne & John Perkins- Follow Me to Freedom

Follow Me to Freedom
Shane Claiborne & John Perkins
Buy- Amazon, Koorong, Book depository, christianaudio

In follow me to freedom, Shane Claiborne and John Perkins discuss what it means for Christians to be followers and leaders. The book takes the form of conversations between the two authors.

Being in conversation format, the book does tend to jump around topics a bit between a diverse range of topics surrounding following Jesus and leading people. If you can keep up with the disjointedness, there is a lot of interest in the book. Perkins is an older African-American civil rights leader and Claiborne is a younger social justice activist so between them they tell a lot of interesting stories. Both of them have put a lot of effort into thinking through and living out their convictions which shows through in the book. Claibourne does have a reputation for being a bit liberal. I didn't think think he was too liberal theologically here, although some might find his ideas about things like civil disobedience a bit out there. I appreciated some of the theological input from Perkins. I also liked that they focused a lot on servant leadership, rather than the power driven type of leadership that often shows up inside and outside the church.

I "read" this book in audiobook format. The narrators did a good job of embodying the character of the authors and having the two narrators made it easier to follow. Maybe because the book was not narrated by the authors, some of the dialogue sounded a bit forced.

You probably won't agree with all of what they say, but I think there is enough good food for thought in the book to make it worth reading.


Review copy provided by christianaudio.com

Featured song: Francesca Battistelli- It's your life

Free "Stuff Christians Like" audiobook

If you've been reading Christian blogs for a while, you will have very likely come across Jon Acuff's blog Stuff Christians Like. He's great at poking fun at the silly things that go on in the Christian community without being mean or sacrilegious. He's recently released a book which has some of the best stuff from the blog as well as some new material. You can download the audiobook of it for free at christianaudio.com/free. It's available free for this month only. I've listened to it already and really enjoyed it.

Book review: Patsy Clairmont- Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope
Patsy Clairmont
Buy- Amazon, Book depository

Kaleidoscope is a whimsical look at an assortment of Proverbs by speaker and author Patsy Clairmont.

It was the cover of the book which grabbed my attention at first. As you can probably guess from the cover it is a fun book. Clairmont is a witty and entertaining writer who isn’t afraid to laugh at her own flaws. Reading it felt kinda like having a conversation with a friend. The chapters are quite short (only a few pages each) which made the book easy to get through. Each chapter is based on a proverb and includes a related story from her life and how the wisdom of the proverb applies to real life. The stories were good, but some chapters did seem to be a bit too much story and not enough bible & application. I did appreciate the wide variety of topics proverbs were chosen from. Following each chapter are questions to think about and further scripture passages for further study. The book is published by the Women of Faith publishing line, but I think it is a book men could enjoy too.


If you are looking for an easy and encouraging read, Kaleidoscope is worth a look.



Review copy provided by booksneeze.com

Loved rebels

In Christian circles we like to talk about the love of God a lot. This is a great thing because it is such an important part of the Christian faith. However, one way our thinking about this topic can run a bit off track is when we get our contemporary self esteem ideals tangled up in it all. Although we probably wouldn't articulate it so brazenly we can start to feel like God loved us for our lovableness or goodness. Romans 5 brings us a reality check-

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

How incredible this is! Stop and think about that passage for a moment. Salvation was not a matter of God doing  favor for his caring buddies, it is God making a huge sacrifice on for his enemies who have done him wrong over and over and over again. That God would work to save us while we were still sinners and rebels should strike a blow to pride and inflated senses of our own goodness. While knowing that we were undeserving rebels might make a bit of a blow to our self esteem, it helps us realize how much we are loved. Knowing how much we are loved is something more precious than any feeling good about ourselves.

Book review: Leslie T. Chang- Factory Girls

Factory Girls
Leslie T. Chang
Buy- Amazon, Book Depository

China has experiences incredible economic growth in the last few decades. Factory Girls shows us the human side of that growth.

The book focuses on several young women who have moved away from their villages in the hopes of finding work in the big industrial cities. It follows their difficulties in tough working environments, their efforts to get ahead by learning new skills and their efforts to develop relationships in the crazy world of factory cities. We also read of their struggles in returning to their villages after what they have experienced. The book makes for fascinating and sometimes disturbing reading. The trials these girls experience and their drive to get ahead is mind boggling.

One part of the book I wasn’t so keen on was the author’s diversion onto the topic of her family’s history in China. It was somewhat interesting, but broke up the flow of the book.

If you are interested in China or just curious as to the stories behind the made in China products you buy, Factory Girls is very worth reading.