GOD CAN'T SLEEP: Waiting for Daylight on Life's Dark Nights
Palmer Chinchen. David C. Cook, $14.99 trade paper (240p)

A former missionary kid in Liberia and now pastor in Arizona, Chinchen (True Religion) writes an all-in book about life lived full-on. This is not your father's theodicy; it aims higher than chirpy preacher platitudes and tells the stories of people in international settings from Haiti to Liberia who embody God's goodness to overcome evil in the world. Chinchen's chapter on heaven is powerful and moving, interweaving the little that Scripture has to say about it with God's "snapshots" of heaven on earth.

His writing is low on religious sap and backed up with life experience. His fresh voice is as good as Rob Bell's or Donald Miller's, but a cut above them theologically, and he offers more authentic global stories to boot. The 20- and 30-something generation will devour this one like termites in a lumberyard. This isn't the next Blue Like Jazz; it's better. (June)

Reviewed on: 05/09/2011 (Link)
ISBN 978-1-4347-0057-5