Book review and best of the net #4

Do you ever wonder what God wants to do with your life?  As you think about big decisions in your life (marriage, job, house etc) do you find yourself feeling paralysed with indecision.  What if I get it wrong, what if I displease God with my decision?  How do I know what path to take?  If you resonate with any of that, then 'Just do Something' by Kevin DeYoung is definitely worth a read.

In this short book, Kevin, a pastor from Michigan, takes us through what the bible teaches us about the will of God and the reasons why some of us wrestle so much trying to find God's will in the big decisions in our life.  He challenges us that often we often spend more time worrying about the non-moral decisions in our lives, which the Bible says very little about.  While we spend very little time considering how we are following what God has actually commanded us to do.  God says he wants us to live holy lives but we spend more time being concerned over whether he wants us to live in Edinburgh or Glasgow.  

Kevin takes us through the flaws in our thinking on this subject and how we should more helpfully consider God's will.  He also lays down the challenge that there are times when God just wants us to do something, make a decision, take a risk and put our faith into action.  Kevin sums it up like this, "God is not a magic 8-ball we shake up and peer into whenever we have a decision to make.  He is a good God who gives us brains, shows us the way of obedience and invites us to take risks for him."

I would thoroughly recommend taking the time to read this book - you can purchase it at 10ofthose

Two helpful blogs

Motherhood or Singless: Which is more sanctifying?  Married at age 34, Colleen Elisabeth Chao blogs about her journey from singleness to marriage to motherhood.  In this post she looks at God's sanctifying process in our lives and challenges us about whether we think a particular stage in life can be used more by God than an other.  She says this, "While His methods vary, God is always committed to maturing and sanctifying His children. But His primary instrument is not our age or stage-of-life—it’s His Spirit and Word at work within us."

On Dating and daugthers An interesting article, by Jen Wilkins on how to rule out unsuitable suitors for our daughters.  Do you come up with a list of intimating techniques to scare of unsuitable guys?  Or do you raise a daughter who will only attractive suitable suitors?  Jen says this, "Instead of intimidating all your daughter’s potential suitors, raise a daughter who intimidates them just fine on her own....The unsuitable suitor finds nothing more terrifying than a woman who knows her worth to God and to her family."

If you have any suggestions of good blogs/articles, please do get in touch at womenatcharlotte@gmail.com 

Walking with God through pain and suffering

On Sunday night during the evening service, Rachel reviewed Timothy Keller's latest book, "Walking with God through pain and suffering".  Here are the notes from the review.  

Tell us a little about this book
Simply book this is a book about suffering, a book to help us deal biblically with suffering.  There are three parts to the book, almost 3 books in one.  Each section has a different angle.  This first looks at the phenomenon of human suffering and how the various ways different cultures, religions and eras in history have sought to help people face and get through it.  It also looks at the "problems of evil" and how we can respond to it.  This section gives the big picture and is quite theoretical.
The second part looks at what the Bible says about the character of suffering.  It covers the sovereignty of God, the suffering of God and the reason the Bible gives for suffering.  
The final section looks at how do we actually walk with God in such times?  How do we ensure suffering will refine us rather than define us?  
Tim Keller also includes stories of people who have suffered through out of the book.  These are very helpful as they show clearly how God has helped them in their suffering and how they see God working in their situation.

Why do you think Tim Keller wrote the book?
We all will suffer in our lives and will encounter suffering in some way.  So the big question is how to we respond when we do.  When faced with suffering many people ask how could a good God, a just God, a loving God could allow such misery, depravity, pain and anguish?  I think Tim Keller wrote this book so we would respond in a biblical rather than worldly way to our suffering.  He wants to help us see an answer to that question which allows us to grow closer to God and to know that God is truly walking with us through our suffering.
Tim Keller also highlights that what we think about suffering is closely linked to what we believe about God.  He says this, "At the heart of why people disbelieve and believe in God, of why people decline and grow in character, of how God becomes less real or more real to us - is suffering."  So what we think about suffering is hugely important and we need to ensure it is in line with the Bible.

Who do you think the book would be most useful for?
Tim Keller says that the 3 sections of the book would be most helpful for different people.  He says those currently in the midst of suffering would benefit from sections 2 and 3.  
Personally I think it is best for those not currently going through suffering.  Instead I think it is a good book to prepare us for when we encounter suffering.  It will reshape our thinking to suffering as it is easy to slip into a secular mindset instead of thinking biblically.  I think it is also a recommended read for those currently walking with others who are suffering.  The topics Tim covers will better equip us to lovingly support and care for those we are walking with.

Through your own experience of walking with others, how did you find this book helpful?
In many ways I wish I'd read this book 3 or 4 years ago.  Over the past couple of years and though my job, I have closely walked with several people through different experiences of suffering.  I think this book would have changed how I helped those people.  I am a 'fixer' and want to make things better for people when they are hurting.  But I was challenged to see that in many ways I'd fallen into a Western mindset rather than a biblical view.  In the West our goal is to be comfortable and happy so we see suffering as an interruption and will do all we can to remove it.  However by doing that we often miss the fact God can be working through that suffering.  God's goal for our life is for us to grow in holiness and Christ-likeness and he can sometimes use suffering to accomplish his purposes in our life.  Looking back if I'd had a better theology of suffering I would have been better equipped to point people to God and look at what he was doing in the present, rather than trying to just change the circumstances.  

To sum up Tim Keller says this, "If we know the biblical theology of suffering and have our hearts and minds engaged by it, when grief and loss come, we will not be surprised by it and can respond in the various ways laid out in Scripture."

Compared to her

This month on the blog we are looking at the theme of image.  In particular thinking about our attitudes to how we look and what God says about beauty and image.  At our brunch in June we will examine this issue further.  So hopefully our posts this month will start us thinking deeper about this issue and cause us examine our hearts and listen to the truths from God’s word.

As we begin to delve into this issue of image, I want to throw out a couple of questions.  Are you happy with the way you look?  When you look in the mirror do you view your reflection with a sense of contentment or do you instantly focus on all the things you want to change?  How easily to you identify with the following stories?

“I put on an outfit I know I look good in, and I feel great – until I get to the party.  Then I see someone who looks slimmer, or cooler, or classier; suddenly the woman looking at back at me in the mirror looks fat, frumpy and dull.  I just want to go home.”

“I look at photos of myself from decades ago and feel so despondent.  I used to be so much slimmer, with smoother skin and no grey hair.  Mind you at the time I thought I was blobby and had frizzy hair…”

All too familiar aren't they?  And I am positive that all of us have at one time or another struggled, probably even now, with a sense of dissatisfaction and discontentment about how we look.  We can long to look different; slimmer, taller, longer legs, less wobbly arms, straight hair (add your own desire). 

Where does this lack of contentment come from?  Why do we suffer from a desire to change how we look?  There are many reasons which I think contribute to how we might answer that but in this post I want to highlight one which comes from a book by Sophie De Witt called ‘Compared to her’.

In the book Sophie identifies an underlying attitude which can lead to our lack of contentment with regard to how we look.  Thinking back to the stories above, what is at heart of them?  The answer is comparison.  Sophie picks up on the fact that often the dissatisfaction we have with our image, and in fact experience in many others areas of life, comes from the fact we are constantly comparing ourselves to others.  How does my figure match up with hers?  Does she look more or less stylish/cool/effortless than me?  Do I look as good as her without having spent the money she clearly has?  On these measuring scales, do I win, compared to her?  Or lose?

When I compare myself with someone else, why do I do it?  What am I hoping to get out of it?  Sophie identifies three themes that motivate our desire to compare ourselves with others. 

1. I want to know that I’m worthwhile (I want to know I’m significant).
2. I want to know that my life is as good as it could be (I want to be satisfied).
3. I want to know that I've got what I need in life (I want to feel secure).

Essentially we want to make ourselves feel good about how we look.  We want to make sure we look as good, if not better than others so we can feel significant, satisfied and secure. 

But the problem is it doesn't work.  We end up doing one of two things.  We compare ourselves to others and come off worse.  This leads to us feeling inadequate, envious, insecure and full of self pity.  We can be bitter or grumble about how we look.  We no longer love ourselves. 

Or we compare ourselves to others and come off better.  This leads to us feeling proud, arrogant and superior and we no longer love those around us.

In reality we tend to do both.  Each day we look up at others and look down on others, and feel anxious and self-sufficient, guilty and proud, despairing and smug.    I know I do this all the time.  Walking down Princes Street on the way to work I can pass one person and think ‘woah, that’s quite an outfit!  At least I don’t look that.  The next person comes along and I’m now thinking, “wow, isn’t she skinny, I wish I was like that”.  What we don’t feel, at least for any length of time, is the sense of significance, satisfaction or security we are looking for in how we look.

In the book Sophie expands on why we behave like this and looks at many areas of life where we suffer from this problem.  It is not just confined to the area of image.  I would thoroughly recommend reading the book and letting God challenge our hearts. 

But without giving away too much of the end of the book, what is the cure?  How do we stop comparing ourselves to others?   In the end, the cure is wonderfully, challengingly simple – Let God be God.  Our compulsive need to compare comes from pushing God out of the centre of our lives.  So the cure is simply to reverse the way we see the world and ourselves.  We need to restore God to the centre and to find all we need, at each point of our days and in every part of our dreams, in Him.   How do we let God be God?  By remembering and knowing and living out truths the Bible says about who God is and what God says about who I am.  Once I remember who God is and that my identity comes from him, then my satisfaction, significance and security is no longer dependent on the wavering comparisons with those around me.  It becomes dependent on the unchanging opinion of the faithful God.  I can hold on to his promise that I am “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works (Ephesians 2:10).”

A copy of Sophie De Witt's book can be bought from the 10ofthose website by following this link - Compared to her