Summer is upon us. Our summers are going to look very different this year, but I hope yours includes reading. I’ve included a more serious non-fiction work and a fun fiction series that all ages will enjoy below. If you’ve read either, I would love your feedback. And let me know what you’re reading this summer!
Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb
What do you do when your dreams have been shattered? Maybe even deeper, why would God allow our dreams to be shattered? In Shattered Dreams, Larry Crabb argues that the way to intimacy with Christ and true spiritual maturity is through shattered dreams. “Shattered dreams are necessary for spiritual growth,” Crabb says.
I picked up Crabb’s book with low expectations. I didn’t really know Crabb and his writing before Shattered Dreams and (unfairly) lumped him in the category of self-help Christianity. I expected gospel-lite and therapeutic Christianity. I was wrong. So wrong.
If John Piper had a brother who was a counselor, he would write this book. If there can be such a thing, Shattered Dreams is a loving punch in the nose.
Crabb walks through the life of Naomi (from the book of Ruth) to navigate what it looks like to have our dreams shattered and how God uses that shattering for our spiritual good. Crabb argues that God is always working for our highest blessing. He says, “There’s never a moment in all our lives, from the day we trusted Christ till the day we see Him, when God is not longing to bless us. At every moment, in every circumstance, God is doing us good. He never stops. It gives Him too much pleasure. God is not waiting to bless us after our troubles end. He is blessing us right now, in and through those troubles. At this exact moment, He is giving us what He thinks is good.”
The conflict comes in that what God’s good for us and what we think is good for us are often not just different but in direct conflict. Our good is constrained to the blessings of this earth. Crabb says, “Our chief aim is to feel better.” Because of this, for us, “God becomes merely a means to an end.” God’s good is found in intimacy with him. Crabb says, “The highest dream we could ever dream, the wish that if granted would make us happier than any other blessing, is to know God, to actually experience Him. The problem is that we don’t believe this idea is true. We assent to it in our heads. But we don’t feel it in our hearts.”
We envision our Christian life as a life where God will be glorified by our prosperity. “The nature of our spiritual journey, we assume, is that God’s glory will be revealed in our prosperity, whether financial, relational, physical, or emotional. As long as we believe that, we walk in the flesh.” Crabb says that, “Satan’s masterpiece is not the prostitute or the skid-row bum. It is the self-sufficient person who has made life comfortable, who is adjusting well to the world and truly likes living here, a person who dreams of no better place to live, who longs only to be a little better—and a little better off—than he already is.”
God so longs for our best—an intimate relationship with him—that he will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death that we might know him intimately. When we see our lives through the lens of experiencing and knowing him, then we see that shattered dreams are a gift, not a catastrophe. I’ve experienced this shattering and know the goodness of it. I’m grateful for Crabb’s wisdom in re-framing the Christian’s experience. I commend Shattered Dreams to you and pray that in reading it you grow in your knowledge and trust of our holy and good God.
The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson
Andrew Peterson is an excellent songwriter. He’s an even better author. Surprisingly, The Wingfeather Saga was dropped by the publisher after the first two books and Peterson had to crowd-fund the final two entries. Praise God that his fans supported the completion of such an excellent series.
I believe that Andrew Peterson has written the best children's adventure series since Harry Potter. The Wingfeather Saga starts strong and only gets stronger, with the fourth the strongest of the books. Just as the Chronicles of Narnia are part fantasy, part coming of age tale, so is The Wingfeather Saga. And similar to The Chronicles of Narnia, the Wingfeather siblings are royalty of a kingdom they are trying to re-establish.
There are so many good things to say about Peterson's series. Peterson has great pacing and strong characters. The relationships are compelling and there are some surprising turns. Like all great stories, The Wingfeather Saga is filled with yearning and hope. Here is a taste in the final book of the series, "That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The Shining Isle exists as surely as the floor you’re standing on. It may be hard to believe, but it’s real, I tell you. Sometimes in the middle of the night, the sun can seem like it was only ever a dream. We need something to remind us that it still exists, even if we can’t see it. We need something beautiful hanging in the dark sky to remind us there is such a thing as daylight. Sometimes, Queen Sara”—Armulyn strummed his whistleharp— ‘music is the moon.’”
But best of all, Peterson theology is deep, which makes the series, like all great children's books, for all ages. As you go deeper and deeper into the saga, you appreciate all the more narrative elements that speak profound theological truths. Peterson speaks truths about human nature, power, identity, belief, and sin. For instance, “When you run out of hope, everything is backward. Your heart wants the opposite of what it needs.”
What a profound series. Young or adult, if you enjoy a great adventure, pick up Peterson's series.
Photo by Angello Pro on Unsplash
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