90 Days of God's Goodness

It may be cliche, but the question of why bad things happen to good people is a tough one to tackle. Randy Alcorn does a tremendous job of answering it. His book 90 Days of God's Goodness is a devotional book that deals with the issue of suffering in the world in relation to God. Alcorn addresses the issue of how a good God can allow so many terrible things to occur. He acknowledges that because of life's horrors, it is very difficult for some people to accept that God is good. But he does not permit us to feed those doubts. He gently, lovingly, and logically argues the case of God's sovereignty and His goodness.
There are a hundred quotes from this book that blew me away. I would love to share them all but of course I can't. I'm just going to share a short bit of a sermon by Pastor James Montgomery Boice that Alcorn quoted:
"God is in charge. When things like this come into our lives, they are not accidental. It's not as if God somehow forgot what was going on, and something bad slipped by.. . . God is not only the one who is in charge; God is also good. Everything He does is good.. . . If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you'd change it, you'd make it worse. It wouldn't be as good."
If you have wrestled with the question, "How can a good God let this happen?"--this is your book. There is Someone who knows more than us, knows better than us, sees farther than us, and loves us more than we can comprehend. Read this book and be encouraged.

*I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

let's get started

I don't really want to start a blog. I don't mind having one, I just don't want to start it. That is the intimidating part. But I'm not out to have loads of followers, get rich, or snag a movie deal, so the pressure's off. Here I go:

Actually, all I have to do is review books. I signed up for the "Blogging for Books" program with Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers. They send me a book to read, I read it, then I review it. I'm reading the first one now. It's called Ninety Days of God's Goodness, by Randy Alcorn. This isn't my review, but I can't help saying something about it already. It's amazing. I feel like I'm going to have a lot to say in my actual review, so it's hard to know what to say now so I don't end up repeating myself later. I just think this book is extremely relevant at a time when truths are being challenged; in fact--the very concept of truth itself is attacked, even by so-called Christians. It's trendy right now to interpret the Bible to say what we think sounds pleasant. It's very popular to decide God is "this" or "that," depending on what we think is good or what makes us happy. When we try to fit God into our mold, what we're really doing is declaring our own self to be God. But unless I am the one who created heaven and earth, unless I am the one who knows every cause and effect throughout the history of the world, unless I am the one who is in control of the past, present, and future, I am not God. And if I am not God, I don't get to decide what is good. I don't need to tell you this, but I will: I'm not God. Therefore, I am not qualified to reword the Bible or to permit you to go ahead and do whatever makes you happy or to say that things would be better if I was in charge.
It is very encouraging to know that Someone good is in charge.

Book review to come in a few weeks. More blog posts to come before that...maybe...