Rating: 
Summary: From Dreams to Reality
Review: "More frequently than untested Christians expect, God removes the one source of joy and meaning that we were counting on to make our lives worth living, and replaces it with nothing." This seed of radical insight, buried in Larry Crabb's previous book, "The Safest Place on Earth," matures into full flower in "Shattered Dreams."The backdrop is Naomi's poignant pilgrimage from bitterness to blessedness, but the substance of his message rises convincingly out of Larry's own encounter with the faithfulness of God. With characteristic clarity, he encourages us to consider that our sufferings, rather than being a sign of God's disfavor, are actually the sole pathway into His presence. In Larry's words, "Only when we discover a desire for Him that is stronger than our desire for relief from pain will we pay the price necessary to find Him." "Shattered Dreams" draws us into a depth of honesty about ourselves and our experience of God that is startling and compelling. For example, most of us struggle to understand how a God who loves us seems at times to be utterly unresponsive to our pain. Larry suggests there are three ways to deal with this. First, we can stop expecting any help from God and simply cope with life as best we can on our own. Or, we can see our anger at God as being sin, and effectively "smother our souls" by attempting to disregard the hurt. Or, option three. "Scream and holler until the terror of life so weighs you down that you discover solid ground beneath your feet. The solid ground is not doctrine. It is not merely truth to believe. It is not recommitment and trying harder to believe and do right. It is Him. It is our awareness of a Christ whose passion to bless is so strong that His restraint becomes not a cause for complaint, but a sacred and appealing mystery." Our society equates suffering with evil. However, if one defines evil as that which contradicts the nature of God, it should be clear that suffering, so integral to the life of Christ and His followers, is in fact among the highest forms of good. As we stop kicking against the goads, and allow our trials to produce their "perfect work," we too, by God's grace, can experience the supernatural passage from human happiness to unspeakable joy. "Shattered Dreams" is a welcome guidebook along that journey.
Rating:
Summary: This place ain't heaven folks
Review: Apologies to Prayer of Jabez fans who are dreaming to expand their ministries, get more income, have everything work out right.
Welcome to reality. I am sure many of us know god fearing people who have had junk thrown in their path for no reason. Ex: a pastor with a growing ministry and two little kids finds out he has terminal cancer. A missionary comes back from the States to an empty house, his wife leaving him for a non-Christian. A young Christian girl heading to college gets killed in a car wreck, and her mom goes back to drugs and drinking. Where's the sense in all this? Have you ever had things just all go to snot? You pray? No answer from above. Larry Crabb has some good thoughts. This garbage can we live on is temporary housing. Our God does not make guarantees for successful marriages, obedient kids, profit making businesses. His interest is that we worship Him and love Him and let Him love us. He is to be our number one source of joy and peace and happiness. Nobody or nothing else can truly satisfy our needs. .
Rating:
Summary: Book Review: Shattered Dreams
Review: Dr. Crabb has done it again! With every sucessive book he writes, he only gets better in his understanding of the Christian life. In his most recent book, "Shattered Dreams," he reviews the book of Ruth from the perspective of Naomi. Through his delving into Naomi and his understanding of Naomi's shattered dreams of a better life he allows us to understand why God brings suffering into our lives. Dr. Crabb also allows us to understand the struggles we have with our flesh during our suffering and how God uses those struggles to bring about a deep desire within us to glorify Him and become intimate with Him. If you have ever truly, really struggled with trials and tribulations you thought would never end, I would heartily encourage you to first read his previous book, "the Safest Place on Earth" and then immediately afterwards read "Shattered Dreams." These two books will minister to you like you never thought imaginable. They truly will consol and comfort your soul.
Rating:
Summary: Book Review: Shattered Dreams
Review: Dr. Crabb has done it again! With every sucessive book he writes, he only gets better in his understanding of the Christian life. In his most recent book, "Shattered Dreams," he reviews the book of Ruth from the perspective of Naomi. Through his delving into Naomi and his understanding of Naomi's shattered dreams of a better life he allows us to understand why God brings suffering into our lives. Dr. Crabb also allows us to understand the struggles we have with our flesh during our suffering and how God uses those struggles to bring about a deep desire within us to glorify Him and become intimate with Him. If you have ever truly, really struggled with trials and tribulations you thought would never end, I would heartily encourage you to first read his previous book, "the Safest Place on Earth" and then immediately afterwards read "Shattered Dreams." These two books will minister to you like you never thought imaginable. They truly will consol and comfort your soul.
Rating: 
Summary: Weak diagnosis and prescription of pain
Review: Dr. Crabb writes in the introduction, "God's Spirit has instructed me to focus my life and ministry around three words: encounter, community, and transformation." I love the journey he is on! I love his vision for Christian communities that manifest the life of Christ in healing relationships. He introduced this (imperfectly) in his book, Connecting. THIS BOOK FALLS FAR SHORT OF BEING A HEALTHY ENTRY POINT INTO COMMUNITY AND TRANSFORMATION. Crabb begins well enough. Who can't recognize that suffering seems omnipresent? We all feel that as God's children we were promised something better. We all suspect that the promises we read in Scripture are fraudulent. He frankly discuses our angst and pain, giving voice to some deep pain that many of us don't even know how to articulate. PROBLEM 1: CRABB NEEDS AN EDITOR. He admits that he writes with a pen and paper. It seems to me that he dashes off his thoughts in stream-of-conscious sessions without regard for what he's written previously. His writing follows a loosely organized path forward, but he constantly backtracks in repeating himself and sidetracks by incorporating extraneous information. PROBLEM 2: MAJOR POINTS ARE POORLY SUPPORTED. One of the ways the editorial problem manifests itself is in weak proofs of strong assertions. For example, in chapter nine, Larry opines, "People who find some way to deaden their pain never discover their desire for God in all its fulness." For those who may be skeptical of such a statement, he then offers, "Think with me about how this works." As a proof of how it works, he writes, "That is the function of pain, to carry us into the inner recesses of our being that wants God." That clearly is not a proof but merely a restatement of the thesis. Some other examples: Larry makes the statement, "Deliverance from despair always comes through a person." He also imagines that the wedding toast for Ruth in Ruth 4 (that she would be like Rachel and Leah) was somehow a hidden wish for sanctified suffering. Clearly, it was nothing more than a wish that she would be a matriarch. PROBLEM 3: WEAK PRESCRIPTION FOR THE PROBLEM OF PAIN. After hemming and hawing for 190 pages about how hard pain is and that God intends pain to draw us near to him, Larry offers a prescription for experiencing the joy that God promises us. Larry's prescription is basically this: Think about God as a holy God of passionate wrath, and think about yourself as arrogant people who deserve eternal misery. UH, OKAY... I'LL GRANT THAT THERE'S SOME TRUTH IN THAT. BUT THAT'S WHAT I SLOGGED THROUGH 190 PAGES FOR? * WHERE IS THE CASE STUDY EVIDENCE THAT SUPPORTS CRABB'S PRESCRIPTION? He is a psychologist. Can't he provide some proof that this is the way to deal with the problem of pain? * WHY DOESN'T CRABB FOCUS ON THE CHRISTIAN'S EXALTED POSITION IN CHRIST? Doesn't the Bible have a lot to say about who we are in Christ? We are no longer "people who deserve eternal misery." Wouldn't it benefit us greatly as Christians to embrace our exalted status? * WHY DOESN'T CRABB FOCUS ON THE COMMUNITY AS A SOURCE OF HEALING? There is nary a word in this book about how our Christian communities can/should help us to deal with the problem of pain. As I considered what was wrong with Crabb's prescription, many thoughts came to mind regarding the faulty assumptions Larry makes that lead him to such a powerless prescription. * Larry has a very fatalistic view of suffering: NOWHERE DOES CRABB QUESTION THE ROLE THAT OUR OWN PERSONAL DECISIONS OR CULTURAL INFLUENCES PLAY IN OUR SUFFERING. My 40-year old brother-in-law who just had colon cancer can view God correctly until he's blue in the face. What he really needs to do is quit eating that 1/2-pound of beef and a pint of ice cream each day! * CRABB'S PRESCRIPTION FOR SUFFERING DOES NOT INCLUDE A PLACE FOR ACTION. Why not? There is no such thing as mental assent. Truly embracing what Christ has for us is inseparable from taking action. Like Connecting, this book feels unfinished. He spends the bulk of the book stating and restating his thesis that only in suffering can we realize all that God has for us, then he fails to present a valid prescription for how to truly embrace suffering. I could go on. My copy of the book was marked with many, many critical comments that I'm not writing here. ...TRY:
* Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer
* C.S. Lewis' Problem of Pain or Grief Observed
* Philip Yancey's Disappointment With God or Where Is God When it Hurts?
Rating:
Summary: Weak diagnosis and prescription of pain
Review: Dr. Crabb writes in the introduction, "God's Spirit has instructed me to focus my life and ministry around three words: encounter, community, and transformation." I love the journey he is on! I love his vision for Christian communities that manifest the life of Christ in healing relationships. He introduced this (imperfectly) in his book, Connecting. THIS BOOK FALLS FAR SHORT OF BEING A HEALTHY ENTRY POINT INTO COMMUNITY AND TRANSFORMATION. Crabb begins well enough. Who can't recognize that suffering seems omnipresent? We all feel that as God's children we were promised something better. We all suspect that the promises we read in Scripture are fraudulent. He frankly discuses our angst and pain, giving voice to some deep pain that many of us don't even know how to articulate. PROBLEM 1: CRABB NEEDS AN EDITOR. He admits that he writes with a pen and paper. It seems to me that he dashes off his thoughts in stream-of-conscious sessions without regard for what he's written previously. His writing follows a loosely organized path forward, but he constantly backtracks in repeating himself and sidetracks by incorporating extraneous information. PROBLEM 2: MAJOR POINTS ARE POORLY SUPPORTED. One of the ways the editorial problem manifests itself is in weak proofs of strong assertions. For example, in chapter nine, Larry opines, "People who find some way to deaden their pain never discover their desire for God in all its fulness." For those who may be skeptical of such a statement, he then offers, "Think with me about how this works." As a proof of how it works, he writes, "That is the function of pain, to carry us into the inner recesses of our being that wants God." That clearly is not a proof but merely a restatement of the thesis. Some other examples: Larry makes the statement, "Deliverance from despair always comes through a person." He also imagines that the wedding toast for Ruth in Ruth 4 (that she would be like Rachel and Leah) was somehow a hidden wish for sanctified suffering. Clearly, it was nothing more than a wish that she would be a matriarch. PROBLEM 3: WEAK PRESCRIPTION FOR THE PROBLEM OF PAIN. After hemming and hawing for 190 pages about how hard pain is and that God intends pain to draw us near to him, Larry offers a prescription for experiencing the joy that God promises us. Larry's prescription is basically this: Think about God as a holy God of passionate wrath, and think about yourself as arrogant people who deserve eternal misery. UH, OKAY... I'LL GRANT THAT THERE'S SOME TRUTH IN THAT. BUT THAT'S WHAT I SLOGGED THROUGH 190 PAGES FOR? * WHERE IS THE CASE STUDY EVIDENCE THAT SUPPORTS CRABB'S PRESCRIPTION? He is a psychologist. Can't he provide some proof that this is the way to deal with the problem of pain? * WHY DOESN'T CRABB FOCUS ON THE CHRISTIAN'S EXALTED POSITION IN CHRIST? Doesn't the Bible have a lot to say about who we are in Christ? We are no longer "people who deserve eternal misery." Wouldn't it benefit us greatly as Christians to embrace our exalted status? * WHY DOESN'T CRABB FOCUS ON THE COMMUNITY AS A SOURCE OF HEALING? There is nary a word in this book about how our Christian communities can/should help us to deal with the problem of pain. As I considered what was wrong with Crabb's prescription, many thoughts came to mind regarding the faulty assumptions Larry makes that lead him to such a powerless prescription. * Larry has a very fatalistic view of suffering: NOWHERE DOES CRABB QUESTION THE ROLE THAT OUR OWN PERSONAL DECISIONS OR CULTURAL INFLUENCES PLAY IN OUR SUFFERING. My 40-year old brother-in-law who just had colon cancer can view God correctly until he's blue in the face. What he really needs to do is quit eating that 1/2-pound of beef and a pint of ice cream each day! * CRABB'S PRESCRIPTION FOR SUFFERING DOES NOT INCLUDE A PLACE FOR ACTION. Why not? There is no such thing as mental assent. Truly embracing what Christ has for us is inseparable from taking action. Like Connecting, this book feels unfinished. He spends the bulk of the book stating and restating his thesis that only in suffering can we realize all that God has for us, then he fails to present a valid prescription for how to truly embrace suffering. I could go on. My copy of the book was marked with many, many critical comments that I'm not writing here. ...TRY:
* Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer
* C.S. Lewis' Problem of Pain or Grief Observed
* Philip Yancey's Disappointment With God or Where Is God When it Hurts?
Rating:
Summary: The Continuation of Larry Crabb's faith journey
Review: I am continually amazed by Larry Crabb with each new book I read by him. I was first introduced to him by a seminary professor who made us read "Understanding People" for our counselling course. I don't remember being struck by Crabb's brilliance but then I picked up a copy of "Connecting" and immediately realized that Crabb was an author I had been waiting a long time to read. In my opinion, Crabb is a necessary voice in today's evanglical culture that seems a little too caught up in the "Name it and Claim it" school or prayer. He isn't afraid to talk about disappointment, trauma and despair and outlines the role of Christian community in helping the Christian with these topics. I was impressed in this latest book by his careful exploration of Naomi, a character in the Bible we don't hear too much about. Usually when we think of those who suffered, we immediately turn to the book of Job. Crabb points out that Naomi suffered as well and lived to see her disappointment turn to joy. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has experienced the death of a dream and wonders where God is and what He is up to. Warning: this book cannot be read just once!
Rating: 
Summary: Glad that this book seems to have been helpful to others....
Review: I found this book disturbing and not at all based in the biblical teachings of Christ. Larry Crabb's God is the vengeful, wrathful God of the Old Testament who embodies none of the forgiveness and the unconditional love that Christ brought to the picture. He claims that God is unresponsive in the face of one's needs and in fact causes us to have trauma and trouble in our lives in order to "break" us until we finally have nothing left but our relationship with Him--which enevitably brings unending joy. This is simply ludicrous. If that were the case then there would be absolutely no point in prayer and no point in trusting that we have already achieved salvation simply by the fact that Jesus died for our sins and that we invite him into our hearts. Yes there is value in suffering, yes there is wisdom and great depth of character to be gleaned from the most dire of circumstances but to claim that God causes it all and then stands by and watches us writhe in pain and does nothing is so far-fetched that it makes me shudder. I wonder if Larry Crabb's earthly parents weren't a bit cruel and unyielding that this is the only God he can picture. Nowhere in the new Testament is God described as such a being. What happened to "Ask and ye shall receive."? What happened to "He who believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."? Personally, I have had many a hideous heartache in this life and my God is not the God who crushes me further but the God who keeps me afloat and who loved me before I learned to love myself. And I love Him with all my heart and all my soul and all my might. I'd rather become a stone cold athiest than buy into Larry Crabbs doom and gloom portrait of God.
Rating:
Summary: From one whose dreams have been shattered
Review: I ordered this book because my dreams and life have been shattered. Though I have been a Christian for over 30 years I have known the pain of a deeply abusive childhood, then the deep desire to find a soulmate, and the shattered dream of a marriage to a good wife who loves me and whom I love, but with whom there is no connection. The intense pain of loneliness and aloneness, and the deeper pain of knowing one who is a soulmate, but who I cannot, will not run to, has broken me. This book did nto take the pain away, and that is the best part. It is real, not empty cotton candy advice from one who has felt no pain. It asks all the quetions I have asked. Why won't God answer, why does he not hear, where is he when I hurt so bad that my whole personality aches with loneliness? There are no easy answers here, only real answers that do not deny the real pain and the real suffering while looking into the eyes of a loving Father who wants you to love him more that any easy fix of your life. He calls us to a higher passion that the passion to be at ease, even when the ease would be good and holy.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I really liked the intensity of this book. It was very inspirational and enlightening to my soul. I would also like to suggest another book that had the same great message. The book is called Dreams Gateway to the True Self.
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