"The promises of God's written Word must bring us to hearing Christ's voice in our spirit, producing a living faith in Jesus."
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God's Mysterious Ways Revealed by Frank R. Davis Trafford Publisher
book review by D. S. Stevens
Author Frank Davis is a former missionary to Kenya and has served as a pastor/teacher in Washington State for over forty years. He has written this book to help believers understand that God's way of working righteousness in our lives just may include some suffering and pain.
Davis uses many Scripture quotations from both the Old and New Testaments to weave together a picture of how God works. He uses typology with the story of Samuel in the Old Testament, with Samuel being a type of Christ and the ancient nation of Israel as a type of the Church.
Davis puts forth the idea that many Christians want their faith to be built up and made stronger without any pain or suffering taking place in their lives. But it just doesn't happen that way. God won't always give us what we want and pray for. But He will always give us what we need. Sometimes delay in answering prayers is what is needed to produce a certain "brokenness" in us—a humility before Him that wasn't there before. This brokenness enables us to die to self and surrender fully to God's will and timing.
Learning not to trust in one's self is of critical importance. But we must learn to put our complete trust in God if we ultimately want to have victory in our lives. The author does an excellent job of exploring why a good God allows suffering of any kind. He states that just because we don't presently know the reason doesn't mean that God doesn't have a good reason or purpose for it. This book was both interesting and thought-provoking and an excellent counterpoint to the health, wealth and prosperity doctrine that is currently so prevalent.