Rating: ★★★★

Who: Ravi Zacharias, modern apologist and speaker. Ravi is the author of Can Man Live Without God? and many other books.

Overview: This book is one of Ravi’s lighter reads, and it deals with various points relating to doubt and suffering. This may sound like covering old ground, but books like Can Man Live Without God? deal with the rational basis for theism; Has Christianity Failed You? focuses on heart issues.

The main thrust of the book, in my opinion is two points: First, we are incapable of true transcendence, and must learn to cope with uncertainty. Second, God retains his right to act as he will, and is not bound to do everything we ask, even in prayer. Jesus did not solve all of the world’s problems, and did not promise to do so on this earth. He came to provide a way to the Father and a path to redemption.

We experience some miracles, but not all the miracles we want; we see some of God, but not all we would like. In the end, the hunt for miraculous transcendence leaves us where we started: asking for ‘just one more’ proof of God’s existence. We must obey the God that we know, rather than asking him to obey us.

Ravi gives the powerful example of John the Baptist in prison, sending a question to Jesus to ask if he is truly the Messiah. Jesus points to the miracles all around him, but does not stage a coup against Herod, or smuggle John out of prison, or perform a miracle in John’s behalf. So John dies because of the testimony of Jesus’ Messiahship—the Messiahship that delivered from sin, but not from pain.

Meat: The chapter on prayer is worth reading more than once. Frequently a loss of prayer life is the erosion of the foundation under the spiritual life, and if we can address its issues, we will not feel like Christianity has failed us. Some readers might be surprised when I say that Ravi is at his strongest when he gets to the heart issues, and we should not relegate him to the apologetics shelf.

Bones: Ravi brings a wealth of examples in this book—so many that sometimes I couldn’t follow the train of thought from point to point. Each chapter makes great points, but it was hard at times to see how they connected to one another. The chapter addressing “The Reason-Driven Life” almost felt like it was in the wrong book.

Quotes: “Virtually every great leader in the Bible struggled during times of testing or tension over what they thought God should do or say, even though they had recognized God’s divine intervention earlier.” (p. 77)

“At first blush, the miracle seems the only way to win a following. But the fickleness of the human mind, our insatiable desire to always want ‘just one more,’ the ever-present reality of need, our desire to play God and hence to control God, the apparent ‘hiddenness’ of God when we need him most—all these reasons that become even more urgent in intense situations make the plea for the arm to be reattached ‘just this once’ highly suspect.” (p. 77)

“If you a praying Christian, your faith in God is what is carrying you, through both the good times and the hard times. However, if you are not a praying person, you are carrying your faith, and trying to carry the infinite is very exhausting.” (p. 151)