Walking With God Through Pain & Suffering – Timothy Keller
“The “problem of evil” is well known. If you believe in a God who is all-powerful and sovereign over the world and at the same time is also perfectly good and just, then the existence of evil and suffering poses a problem. The classic statement of it was given by David Hume, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. “Epicurus’s old question are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then this evil?”…” p.85
Suffering has to be the most astounding phenomenon on earth. Many have tried to explain the reason for suffering, but while most explanations are useful, they all, in the end, fall short. Why? Because suffering has range. Every person suffers in their own way, and suffering is both justified and unjustified (unjustified suffering confuses the most). How does one explain a mother nurturing a child for nine months and then giving birth to a stillborn? And how does one explain natural disasters that sweep many in their wake?
Most times there are no answers, and if the book of Job teaches anything, it is that we do not run the universe. And so, Timothy Keller does not come to explain why suffering exists. Rather, he explains why Christianity has better resources for dealing with suffering than other religions. Why? Because God also suffered and the piercings of the nails in his hands are proof. Keller then suggests ways in which Christians can walk with God in pain and suffering.
As usual, Keller’s writing is lucid, and he draws on personal stories of people he knows. With pastoral wisdom, Timothy Keller guides the reader to truths all sufferers must hold on to, so our suffering is not wasted. Likening suffering to a furnace, Keller writes on understanding the furnace, facing the furnace and walking with God in the furnace. One does not have to be going through pain or suffering to read this book. In fact, I think it is important to read this book when things seem okay, so one is both humbled and prepared for the day of adversity.
In an age where so-called preachers skew the gospel and preach that Christians ought not to suffer, or where Christians boldly claim that they would neither suffer nor be tested by God through suffering, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering is a clarion call to brainwashed believers to look to Scripture, and to look to Jesus and the Cross, the symbol of our faith that was first a symbol of shame and suffering. Christians and non-Christians alike are enjoined to read this book and gain wisdom.
Grace – Chika Unigwe
“The night Grace left with the baby, her mother had followed her at a distance like a ghost. She waited until Grace had walked out of the front door into the street to walk behind her. She followed Grace as she walked down Chime Avenue, turned left past the pharmacy, then right into Edward Nnaji Street towards New Haven Primary School. She watched Grace wait for a car to pass before crossing over and turning right into Nzimiro Street, which was fairly deserted.” P. 109
Grace is the first novel by Chika Unigwe that I read, and it certainly would not be the last. Largely set in Eastern Nigeria in 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic that took many lives, it often flashes back for context. It is a story about loss. Grace, the protagonist, had a perfect family and a perfect life, until her carefully crafted world suddenly shattered. Twenty-six years after the birth of Baby, the child she had at fifteen, Grace’s life starts to unravel. Yet, as much as the story is about loss, it is also about guilt. Grace’s guilt was the underlying factor behind her profitable fertility clinic. The guilt of dumping her child on the day of her birth because she had no choice. The guilt that made her believe that the baby factory she was running was a way to correct her own errors and give other unwanted babies the chance to be united with people who would want them.
Furthermore, Grace is a love story, a story about a mother’s love.
Grace is not a moral story. Unigwe does not attempt to debate whether baby-making factories are good or bad. It is simply a human story about realities many women face and the limited options before many. It is the sort of book that forces one to step into the shoes of all the characters and see things from their perspective. The redemption or restoration at the end of the novel is encapsulated by the name of the titular character. Perhaps that is why the novel is titled Grace: that women and girls in these desperate situations be, well, accorded grace. Unigwe writes with heart, and that is the best thing about the book.
Wahala – Nikki May
“She spotted Simi deep in conversation with a striking woman and felt a spike of irritation. ‘Just us two,’ Simi had said. The stranger had long toned limbs and glossy brown skin; she looked almost sculpted. Something about her profile was familiar and for one heartbeat, Ronke was sure she knew her from somewhere. She blinked and the feeling disappeared. She didn’t know anyone who showed side-boob at lunch. Or had an over-the-top blonde weave.” P. 6
Wahala is a wonderful book by Nikki May, and I am excited that there’s going to be a TV series adaptation. I look forward to the drama because there’s lots of it – lots of wahala. It is a story about friendship. Ronke, Simi, and Boo have been best of friends and had a level of sanity in their lives until a fourth person enters their circle. Nikki May does what she knows best: tell a story with multiple perspectives with four main characters (because why have one?) Each chapter is narrated in the voice of one of the main characters.
Wahala is also about identity. May explores the formation and sustenance of mixed-race identities: who were their fathers and mothers? Under what circumstances did they meet, and how did they blend in societies where they were neither here nor there? Like in This Motherless Land, the more I read, the more apparent it became that I would never fully understand these realities; nonetheless, one ought to be aware. Finally, Wahala is about vengeance. But the reader would have to read the book to find out why.
Counterfeit Gods: When the Empty Promises of Love, Money and Power Let You Down – Timothy Keller
“The human heart is indeed a factory that mass-produces idols.” P. 155
I’m so glad I bought this book because it tells me what I do not want to hear – I have idols. And almost as if the odds are stacked against me, it tells me I have both personal and cultural idols. The goal of Counterfeit Gods: When the Empty Promises of Love, Money and Power Let You Down is not to make one weary over the existence of idols in their lives, but to make even the best of us who assume that we are without idols recognise their idols and hand them over to Jesus.
Divided into seven chapters, Keller’s writing is matter-of-fact as it is compassionate. It is the sort of book to be read at the start of every year to reset one’s focus on the true God, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.
Keller stressed, importantly, that an idol could be made of anything under the sun, more so that ‘idols’ do not necessarily mean physical objects, although they could be. Over the course of human history, we have made idols of money, sex, power, ideologies and even religion. Keller poignantly points out that idols are not inherently bad. However, when idols are loved inordinately as though they were God, we know our hearts are not right.
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