Book Review: "Shattered Dreams" by Larry Crabb

I am a real fan of Larry Crabb.  I'll have to admit that the first chapter of "Shattered Dreams" was difficult for me to read.  Without the context of the rest of the book, I had the feeling that Larry was spending too much time and space on the pain of the times when God doesn't answer our pleas to Him the way we'd like Him to.

In reality, we often press down our pain with pious-sounding words like, "God knows what's best..." and the like. Crabb is painfully honest about the disappoint that comes from really trusting God with your problems but not receiving the answers you'd like. KNOWING that God knows what is best doesn't necessarily make your painful existence FEEL any better.

Once he has helped us get over our compulsion to "make excuses" for God, he gets to the real meat of the matter. The story of Naomi and her bitter experiences with God present a great backdrop for contemplating our own disappointing experience with God. Like us, Naomi also saw many opportunities for God to "come through" for her come and go without God responding to her prepared script for Him.

It is often not in the *removal* of our painful experiences that we experience God most deeply and intimately. Crabb shows that it is often in walking *through* the dark, lonely valleys that we realize that God is using those very experiences to remove the obstacles to the deep intimacy with God that we desire.

If that is true, then we can't ask God to remove the painful experiences so we can have intimacy.  The desired shortcut will ultimately only short-circuit the intimacy we were longing for.

In our painful experiences, when all else is stripped away, we can learn - and Crabb says ONLY then can we learn - that it is God we've longed for all along. It is only after we've walked some painful pathways that we are able to truly enjoy God for Who He is!

While the early pages were hard work, the "meat" in the middle of this book made the early work well worth the effort! I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who struggles to understand why God doesn't "come to their rescue" in their difficult times.  Don't give up in the early pages, and definitely don't write Crabb off as a heretic before you've done the work to milk these pages for their full benefit!

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: WaterBrook Press (November 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307459500
• ISBN-13: 978-0307459503
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches

~I received this book free for review from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group.