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What do you do when God is silent? Writing out of the pain of his wife's fight for life but also the wonder of watching the prayer movement they founded touch many lives, Pete Greig wrestles with the dark side of prayer and emerges with a hard-won message of hope, comfort, and profound biblical insight for all who suffer in silence. Pete Greig, the acclaimed author of Red Moon Rising, has written his most intensely personal and honest account yet in God on Mute, a book born out of his wife Sammy's fight for her life and diagnosis of a debilitating brain tumor. Greig asks the timeless questions of what it means to suffer and to pray and to suffer through the silence because your prayers seem unanswered. This silence, Greig relates, is the hardest thing. The world collapses. Then all goes quiet. Words can't explain, don't fit, won't work. People avoid you and don't know what to say. So you turn to Him and you pray. You need Him more than ever before. But somehow ... even God Himself seems on mute. In this heart-searching, honest, and deeply profound book, Pete Greig looks at the hard side of prayer, how to respond when there seem to be no answers, and how to cope with those who seek to interpret our experience for us. Here is a story of faith, hope, and love beyond all understanding.… (more)
User reviews
Don't get me wrong, there is some really good stuff here. The material is framed within a meditation on the days of the Easter Weekend from Thursday through to Saturday, and this is a successful strategy, with the exploration of the silence of God on Easter Saturday being the section I found most thought provoking. The openness of the stories shared is refreshing and honest, with stories of God's answering of prayer balanced well with similar stories where God's answers have been missing.
On the down side, I found some of the material to be derivative and the use of biblical material not always faithful to the context from which it comes. I also wouldn't go to some of the places that Pete does in my thinking about God, especially in the area of the sovereignty of God.
On balance, a useful and honest book, born of a personal struggle that seeks to help other people in similar situations to wrestle with God and to live with integrity. Overall it achieves this, and is a resource that I'm sure I will return to for my own journey with God, and to give to others as we journey together.
God on Mute takes on the issue of unanswered prayer from a place of experience, deep thought, and a great deal of study. How Greig is able to take all of the reading he has to have done for this book and write in such a way as to not sound like just another scholar is a refreshing change.
I anticipate that this book is one I will return to frequently throughout my life, with joy and the sometimes flinching pain that true wisdom sometime brings in times of trial or discipline.