Reading: Disappointment With God by Phillip Yancey

I am reading another great book. It is titled Disappointment With God, and it is written by Philip Yancey. The book is not new. It was published in 1988. Although the topic is formidable, Yancey dives in head first, and does not shrink back from boldly exploring the theme.

Prior to beginning to write, Yancey took two weeks and read the Bible straight through, from cover to cover. Doing that, he said, gave him a fresh perspective on God. After reading the Bible again, all the way through, Yancey focuses his message on the emotional side of God, looking, if you will, at God's frustration with the human race. He looks at God as a jilted lover.

Yancey examines three fundamental questions: Is God unfair? Is he silent? Is he hidden? He considers the era of great signs and wonders in the Exodus story and muses over how much ultimate impact for change all of those supernatural happenings really effected. After seeing God in a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire every day, and all of the other supernatural phenomena, the people of Israel still rebelled.Yancey looks at the different ways that God has chosen to relate to us humans down through the centuries.I am still in the midst of the book and don't have a final verdict on it yet, but what I've read so far, I really, really like.

Update March 13th 2005. I have finished the book and I must say, it left me on somewhat of a downer. Yancey does not candy-coat the harsh and difficult reality of God's sometimes silence in response to our queries. This book is only for the stout of heart and mind, and not for someone whose faith is tender.