exchanged living.

Three Great Things about “Shouting At God”

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my friend and former-local-partner in ministry Steve Rose has just released his first book, Shouting At God, which follows Steve’s journey and reflections upon his father’s diagnosis and battle with cancer. I just finished reading the book today, and wanted to highlight three great things that Shouting At God offers its readers:

1. Shouting At God doesn’t minimize the difficulties of cancer or faithfulness while facing it.  Steve gives a lot of unfiltered perspective on his own questions, doubts, and struggles in seeing someone he loves face this sickness. Cancer and similar diagnoses cannot and should not be trivialized as mere hurdles in the race of life; Steve writes with a raw conviction that cancer is hard on everyone involved, and faith in the midst of it is as well. 

2. Shouting At God refuses to give ground to the lie that sicknesses are overcome through “more faith”. Let’s be honest: we’ve all been in situations where we have heard others say, or perhaps even said ourself, “If only we (or they) had more faith, God would ____________”  Whether it’s healing someone, fixing something, or just seeing God act, the general lie that “If I do X, God will do Y” has wiggled its way into many of our hearts. This logic amounts to the manipulation of the Divine; it attempts to control situations, even control God’s actions, and I appreciate how Steve stands against this kind of belief in his book. 

3. Shouting At God gives anchoring to those who find themselves in the midst of what may be the hardest season of their life.  Steve is a pastor at heart, and it is clear that this book is aimed primarily to encourage and anchor families facing cancer head-on.  If this book offers any one thing to pass on, it is the companionship and perspective of someone who has walked through the sickness and death of his father. Through his doubts, his questions, his hardships and ultimately his faith, Steve offers himself as a friend and pastor to the reader; for many, and especially for those in the midst of this fight, it will be a welcomed presence.