BOOK REVIEW
Tim Chester, Enjoying
God: Experiencing the power and love
of God in everyday life, The Good Book Company, 2018. pp.183
All of us
at sometime or other feel that we aren’t really enjoying God as we should. Our relationship with him seems distant at
times and can really we know God? Perhaps
a question we have all asked. We enjoy the
Sunday service and feel uplifted by the singing and the message, yet by Monday,
that is all forgotten and we are struggling with life and feeling in need of another
spiritual uplift.
In the
preface Tim Chester sets the scene in a typical family. Mike, Emma and their two children have
enjoyed the Sunday service and feel close to God. They came home singing worship songs, yet on
Monday morning after delays on the train and having been packed in tightly, he
finally arrives at the office. Bob the only other Christian in the office asks
Mike, “How was church?” “The truth is it
seems like a long time ago. Yesterday
the pastor had spoken of a relationship with God. It seemed like a real possibility on Sunday, however,
that was Sunday and this is Monday!”[1]
Tim Chester
writes in an easy to read style. In
fourteen chapters, he covers a wide range of helpful subjects. Each chapter finishes with an ACTION idea and
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS to help assimilate and apply the ideas of the
chapter. Every so often at the end of a
chapter he uses Mike and Emma to show how these principles are working in their
lives.
Tim also
challenges us to really think through our thoughts and motives about God. For example, in chapter 2, he starts by
asking, “Do you want more of God? Do you want to enjoy Him?” We all know what the answer should be, but if
we are honest do we really want to spend time hanging out with God? So he puts the question differently by
asking, “Do you like God?” We are all pretty good, he goes on to say, about
judging a person fairly quickly when we meet them whether we will like them or
not. Yet, he asks another question, “How
is it, then, that some of us have known God for years without ever deciding
whether we like Him?” He says that
Christianity is about a relationship with God that brings joy. He gives five
benefits of enjoying a relationship with God.
And very practically turns them around to say that if these things are
not true, then they are likely to be a sign that we are not enjoying God in a
fulfilling way.
Chapter 7
is perhaps very applicable to us in this present crisis. The chapter heading is IN EVERY PAIN WE CAN
ENJOY THE SON’S PRESENCE. Jesus is the
same yesterday, today and forever. So
how Jesus dealt with people going through loss, shame, anxiety as recorded in
the gospels shows us how Jesus relates to us now. Using examples from the gospels he shows how Jesus
is at work in our lives today as he was then.
We could
summarize this book the way Tim Chester does on page 33. He describes his book as the “Observer’s Book”
about God. “It identifies the main ways
in which God interacts with us each day.
It doesn’t describe amazing spiritual experiences that seem remote from
[our] experience. It doesn’t outline
spiritual disciplines for [us] to master or spiritual gifts for [us] to ‘claim’. It’s not a book about what [we] need to
achieve. It’s about what God has
achieved in Christ. It’s a book about
grace, about how God in his kindness invites us to share in the delights of the
Father in the Son and the Son in the Father through the Holy Spirit. It’s a
spotter’s guide to all the very ordinary ways in which that happens every day.”[2]
If we really
desire God for who He is then this book is one means that encourages us to
enjoy God more.
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