Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33037 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 346 pages

Customer Reviews

Honest, intelligent, and funny as well
Pete Greig is a very committed Christian, who founded a prayer movement called 24-7. 24-7 has been hugely influential, has spread across the globe and has generated literally thousands upon thousands of amazing stories of answered prayer. So when Pete's wife Samie has a terrifying fit, is diagnosed with a massive brain tumour, has brain surgery and is left with epilepsy, Pete is ideally placed to pray for her and see her illness healed and her epilepsy disappear. Isn't he?

That isn't how things work out. Pete prays all right, and so do many others, but the sickness remains. So here you have the leader of a global prayer movement, who really knows the power of prayer and sees prayers answered all the time, having to wrestle with the fact that his own prayers for something that desperately, desperately matters to him aren't being answered at all. How can he reconcile this with his faith?

The result is one of the best Christian books I've read in a long time, one of those books that you keep buying extra copies of to give away. It is written with honesty and integrity: not trying to sugar-coat the pain of what he and Samie have been through, but wrestling with it and trying to understand it. Pete has brought together a great many strands of theological thought, and has made them accessible. This should be compulsory reading for every Christian.

Invitation to Engage
There's no way I can be objective about Pete Greig's writing as its impact on me over the last three years has been massive and at the heart of a whole resurgence of energy for God and the kingdom coming that is marking my life and relationships just now. But I'll try ...

God on Mute is the best grapple with the agonising question of un-answered prayer that I know. It is for real. Primarily because it springs out of Pete and Samie's story of what is so very demanding in their lives. But also for the way it connects with the experience of Jesus: facing his fear in Gethsemane; utterly alone on the cross; dead silent in the tomb; speaking into his friends' deepest fears on the day of Resurrection. I have wept with this book. And I know I will return to it for its specific teaching which is well organised and accessible, not only for individual readers but as a resource for group study and reflection.

The overall impact for me is a challenge about being more bold, specific and persistent in intercession; I realise that the main reason I don't know the real agony of un-answered prayer is that so much of my praying has been so open-ended that it would be hard to determine what was answer and what was lack-of-answer. Through Pete's writing God is inviting me to a much deeper engagement than that.

Laughter is the best medicine
I love Pete's outlook on life and faith and as he's an absolutely fantastic writer to boot I'd have probably read whatever he published even if it was called 'Lard On Toast'. But the fact that he's writing about prayer - specifically unanswered prayer - makes me even more hungry to hear what he's got to say. I've heard Pete speak on a few occasions about the process of coming to terms with his wife Samie's brain tumour and his honesty has always been incredibly moving and motivating. That his home life was imploding just as he was being thrust forward as the figurehead of a rampant global prayer movement (24-7 prayer) seems an irony too cruel to bear. So having said all this you might find it a bit strange that I've chosen the following portion to quote, but here goes:
"Outwardly I tried to give an impression of stoic endurance, and there were times when I felt very calm. But I was also scared that Samie might die if I didn't pray enough, or if I didn't have enough faith, or if I didn't fast enough, or if I didn't bind some disembodied principality, or if I didn't repent of some root sin, or if I didn't strap her body on a stretcher bound for Lourdes, or if I didn't agree with Benny Hinn."
When I read those lines, which come after a whole chapter fraught with heart-break, I laughed like I'd not laughed in a long time. It was like a release valve letting out the pressure of my own doubts and fears, which a book like this inevitably leaches to the surface. Here's my point, and the thing above all else that I want to applaud Pete for, laughter is a spiritual gift. To be able to write a book touching on some of the most emotional and sensitive issues people will ever face, and to do so with a gracious, contagious smile is about as close to Jesus as you can get I think.