Why is God Ignoring Me? What to Do When It Feels Like He’s Giving You the Silent Treatment by Gary R. Habermas

This book is a review copy sent to me by Tyndale. I thank them very much for the opportunity to review this book.

The author knows pain. His wife of 23 years, the mother of four children, died of cancer. He knows the loneliness which follows something as horrific as that. Although he doesn’t go into much detail in the book, this is an author who is obviously writing as someone who is truly sympathetic with the person reading this book. Yet at the same time I don’t think he gets to the heart of the matter and I feel he is often missing connections either with what the reader feels they want or what’s most important from a spiritual perspective.

Much of the book is about how God is working in the world. He isn’t silent. He is working and speaking through healing, answered prayer, angels, demons, near-death experiences and people who haven’t heard the gospel who have been prepared for it. If I was in the situation of wondering why God is ignoring me, I would be thinking, “But what about me? That’s great that these things are happening to other people but I still feel ignored.”

Next he talks about “love letters”. Things that are more subtle than the last chapter like feelings of joy, conviction of sin (a good one), etc. I kept thinking, What about the Bible? I wouldn’t necessarily call it a love letter, but it’s one big collection of letters written by God through people to us. Any time we want, we can hear God speak to us by just reading it. We may not often get a special revelation, word of comfort or conviction of sin, but God’s word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12), not just a collection of text. Augustine said, “The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.” Thomas Watson, a prolific Puritan writer wrote, “Think in every line you read that God is speaking to you.”

A strength of the book is Biblical Teaching That Life Will Be Difficult (page 46) that’s within Chapter 3 – Our Favorite Verses. This talks a lot about the Biblical view of suffering which is really what people who feel ignored by God are going through. There is a lot of Scripture given in this chapter. He writes about how prayer isn’t always answered (or the answer is ‘no’). He writes about the Bible saying that life isn’t always going to be rosy, even some of Jesus’ prayers weren’t answered, Christians in the present time are often strengthened through sickness, trouble etc.

Some of the things written about are legitimate and some are on the edge without a lot of backing from Scripture. It reminds me of the book Prayer by Richard Foster. And interestingly enough he refers to that book a lot. I gave it a very unfavorable review here on this blog.

A good quote from this book that I wish he would have dwelt more on is,

By giving God the preeminent place in our lives, we draw closer to him, and in doing so, we just might find that he’s not as hidden as we might have assumed. Concentrating preeminently on God can help promote a mind-set and atmosphere in which he can work more fully in us.

Chapter 7 is what I would call spiritual (in a good way) cognitive therapy, or what we tell ourselves. This is done in a way that isn’t worldly and helps us to think in a more Godly way.

In the last paragraph of the book he writes,

We know so much more than Job ever did, especially the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. With such a foundation, we are more than justified to trust God with those matters we don’t understand. Shouldn’t we be willing to grow and mature spiritually as we wait for our resurrection, which will place all our suffering in an eternal perspective?

This would be a good place for the book to start and concentrate on.

Although the author is a Christian apologist and is a solid conservative evangelical Christian I can’t recommend this book, although it may be helpful for some.

I would recommend How Long, O Lord? by D.A. Carson. The title gets to the heart of the matter and even that is Scriptural. Cries of the Heart by Ravi Zacharias is also good. There are also many good books on suffering in general and trusting God like Suffering and the Sovereignty of God by John Piper et. all and Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (February 26, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1414316887

Where to buy:
Amazon.com
Westminster Bookstore does not sell this book.