Over the years I have run hot and cold on Larry Crabb. At times I find him to be tremendously insightful, and at times I find him going directions that I am not comfortable with. In the early parts of his ministry he sought to estabish a model for biblical counseling but there were some of us who didn't think he was as biblical as he could have been. But, in other cases he has clearly stood for biblical principles against the prevailing psychological conventional wisdom. He has taken a new direction that I don't know what to make of. It seems like he is going more for mysticism than biblicism, but I haven't really read enough of his new stuff to have a firm grasp.
Having said that, I think that his book, Shattered Dreams, hits the nail on the head in many areas. So, I thought I would share the Amazon review on this book that I did a year or so ago.
With this book Crabb hopes to start a revolution. I am a little suspicious of anyone who actively tries to start a revolution. It seems to me that the people God used to start revolutions in the Bible wanted anything but to start a revolution. It seems that the main thing that qualifies someone to start a revolution is a reluctance to start said revolution.
Haivng said that, after revolutionaries are touched by God, they must move out. And maybe that is what has happened here - maybe this is the fruit of years of God's preparaiton of Crabb.
This book has some profound insights into the ways of God with man that could revolutionize the way we relate to God. I say "revolutionize" to say that this would change the way we think about God, pray to God and what we expect from God. In saying that, I don't mean to say that our life will suddenly become a bed of roses.
Shattered Dreams would make an interesting companion book to Desiring God by John Piper. Crabb says much the same thing that Piper says - our greatest joy is found in God, not from God. It has been several years since I read Desiring God but my recollection is that Piper seeks to foster our satisfaction in God by motivating us to pursue our pleasure in knowing God. Crabb, on the other hand, demonstrates how God fosters satisfaction and pleasure and passion in Him by stripping away all of the lesser pleasures of this earth.
IMHO the three most helpful insights that this book offers are:
1. The goal is that God be glorified in us, not that He be useful to us. Crabb says that we have taken the "Holy God of Passionate Wrath," and turned Him into the "Helpful God of Useful Principles." One thought that occurred to me in this regard is that Crabb makes the case that what we need to repent of is our desire for God to make us feel good and give us a sense of well-being. If this is the case, many probably need to re-examine their "salvation experience," since many in our day come to Christ because He has been presented to them as the "useful God." Come to Christ - He is useful to get you out of hell and into heaven, come to Christ, He is useful to give you a happy life, etc., etc.. Could it be that the Christ that many have allegedly "accepted" is not the Christ of the Bible, and could this explain why so many who have allegedly "accepted" Christ fall away? If nothing else, this insight from Crabb should cause all who name the name of Christ to re-examine their hearts to see what kind of "Christ" they are naming.
2. God is committed to bringing us the greatest joy possible, however such joy is only found in Him. Therefore, He allows, and even causes, us to have our most cherished dreams shattered in order that we will quit hoping in them and find our joy in Him.
3. Though we can now claim to be the bride of Christ, we live in the betrothal period of our relationship. The wedding feast of the lamb is yet to come - the relationship has not been consummated yet. Therefore, though we are secure in our relationship with Christ we cannot and will not ever feel as close to Him on earth as we long to. There is distance in the betrothal period that is not present once the wedding has taken place. God feels hidden from us because to a large extent He is hidden from us.
Also, Crabb makes some good points about how we treat people who are going through the agony of shattered dreams. We are usually quick to accept those who are suffering as long as they utter all of the proper pious platitudes - "yes, my life is in a shambles but I am trusting God in the midst of this and getting better day by day, all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose, etc. etc." But we are less comfortable with those whose today's are worse than their yesterday's and who are honest about their pain and confusion - "my life is in a shambles right now and I don't see God anywhere in this situation, as far as I am concerned it looks like He has forsaken me." We prefer piety, even false piety, to honesty.
There are a couple of paragraphs on page 144 that summarize the book very nicely, I believe.
"It's hard to hear, but it is important to know that God is not committed to supporting our ministries, to preventing our divorces, to preserving our health, to straightening out our kids, to providing a livable income, to ending famine, to protecting us from agonizing problems that generate in our souls an experience that feels like death."
"We cannot count on God to arrange what happens in our lives in ways that will make us feel good."
"We can count on God to patiently remove all the obstacles to our enjoyment of Him. He is committed to our joy, and we can depend on Him to give us enough of a taste of that joy and enough hope that the best is still ahead to keep us going in spite of how much pain continues to plague our hearts."
Whether or not Crabb's insights start a large scale revolution, they can start an individual revolution as we exchange the "useful God" for the Biblical God, and this book is a good starting point.
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