A practical and reassuring work of popular theology.
This second Christian self-help book in a series encourages readers to trust in God’s plans instead of impulsively pursuing their own.
Williams (The God of How, 2013, etc.) is the senior pastor of Gateway Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the chairman of the board of regents of Logos University in Jacksonville. In his years of ministry, he says, he’s learned that people with biblical and secular worldviews approach life’s big questions in different ways. Secular “heart-thinking,” as he calls it, is emotional and instinctive, so it often doesn’t stand up to vigorous reasoning, he says. But the extra complication for Christians, he explains, is that God’s will sometimes doesn’t seem to line up with what they have envisioned for the future: “The goal of all believers should be to avoid being deceived by our own understanding and to develop a listening ear that hears the voice of God with confidence.” Instead of feeling hurt and rejected when personal plans don’t work out, Christians should see evidence of God’s gentle redirection, he says: “God wants to tell a story through your life. It unfolds as doors open and close.” The author illustrates his lessons with relatable anecdotes from his own life. For instance, he says that he never intended to follow in his father’s footsteps as a preacher, but that he believes that God arranged the circumstances that eventually led him into ministry. Experiences that felt like failure at the time, he asserts, turned out to be a blessing. In this book, the author clearly offers his perspective on how life works—it doesn’t bend to human wishes or proceed at random, he says, but develops according to divine will. Along the way, he proposes achievable habits that he says will help readers to know God’s plan, including prayer, Bible reading, and pursuing supportive relationships. Some of the scriptural commentary can be tediously listlike, and devoting a chapter to drawing analogies with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice seems like an odd choice. Overall, though, this book offers a well-structured argument with enough everyday examples to make it feel down-to-earth, rather than unachievably spiritual.
A practical and reassuring work of popular theology.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 235
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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