God is Closer Than You Think

Title: God is Closer Than You Think 

Author: John Ortberg

Publisher: Zondervan

Genre: Christian Nonfiction, Christian Living, 

Source: own

My Review:

God is Closer Than You Think by John Ortberg is a fascinating book. I don't think I have read very many books with so much humor and references to popular movies. The humor was refreshing.

Obviously, Ortberg's main point is that God is closer than we think, and He is right. It took me a minute to get into the book, because it was hard to see where Ortberg was going. In some ways, his thoughts seem scattered, but in other ways, I appreciated how he got where he was going. This is not a book that is easy to describe in a review, so I will simply give a few quotes that impacted me the most:

"Spiritual habituation is in some ways more dangerous than spiritual depravity because it can be so subtle, so gradual. Mostly it involves a failure to see."

"Perhaps our capacity to pay attention to God-like the capacity to lift weights or speak Spanish-only gets stronger when it gets exercised."

"I believe that the greatest moment of your life is this moment right here. This tick of the clock. This beat of your heart. The greatest moment of your life is now."

'"In my Father's house are many rooms," Jesus said. One of them was added on when you because his child. The one is yours, and no one else can ever occupy it. It is secret to you and him. It's your own private Sistine Chapel. It is furnished by every moment of intimacy and wonder and togetherness shared by you and your Father. In the whole divine journey, no one else can walk your pathway. In the whole cosmic choir, no one else can sing your song."

Slight spoiler alert: if you like the movie The Princess Bride, this book is worth reading just to see what he did with it here. I highly recommend the book.

★★★★/5

Synopsis (Goodreads):   

Two works of art help John Ortberg think about the presence of God. One is Michelangelo Buonarroti's brilliant painting of God and Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. God is close. His hand comes within a hair's breath of the hand of the man. It seems to say that God is closer than we think-he's here, now, today, accessible to all who will but "lift a finger." The second work of art is Martin Hanford's cartoon character Waldo. He is on every page of the Where's Waldo? books, but he can be difficult to find. In the same way, even though God is present on every page of our lives, he's often not easy to spot. In God Is Closer Than You Think, John Ortberg examines this frustrating paradox of the Christian life. "When it is so easy to 'see' God all around me (in trees, in birds, in nature) why is it so hard to feel his presence-especially when I need him most?" Ortberg helps readers discover the secret to living daily in the reality of God's most frequent promise in Scripture, "I will be with you."