Is God Always Kind? {Book Review - Remember God}

Annie F. Downs feels like she's done her part, but God hasn't. Her book, Remember God, wrestles with figuring out if God is, or isn't, always kind. #ChristianBookReview

Is God Always Kind? {Book Review – Remember God}

December 20

~ Today’s Scripture Art and book review of Remember God were designed to inspire you to write God’s Word on your heart. ~

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Is God always kind to us? Always?

We know the Sunday School answer.

Isaiah 54:8b (NASB): But with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer.

Everlasting.

But what if it doesn’t seem like that’s true?

The book Remember God, by Annie F. Downs, sets out to answer that question.

See if you’ve ever felt like Annie …

“Chutes and Ladders is like a picture of my whole life. … I watch you effortlessly roll and get exactly the ladder you want. You climb up and wave down to me. The category could be anything: work, relationships, health, parking spots. … And as best I can tell, there’s nothing I can do except ride down the chute to a place I don’t want to be – all because it was my turn and God tossed the dice. It’s not very kind of Him.”

Whoa – are we allowed to say that? {Ha – He knows anyway!}

Annie is nothing if not honest and frank in her book.

She knows God is supposed to be loving and good; she believes He is big and powerful. But she’s not sure if He is truly kind. She feels like she’s done her part, but God hasn’t. Who she knew God to be and who she needed Him to be weren’t quite matching up.

Buckle up, because in this book Annie lays her heart open and goes through every possible doubt to find out once and for all if God is, or isn’t, always kind.

*Side Note: Today’s Scripture Art is included in our Sympathy Card set …

She explains, “I’m tired of hearing those sentences that are just tweetable enough to make me feel like I’m not allowed to be sad about my life yet leave me feeling that God is sad toward me because I can’t just swallow those quips and get over it. I’m going to do my darndest not to write those cheesy, quippy kinds of sentences [in this book]. Because I bet you’re as tired of them as I am. I don’t want to read or write sentences that only talk about who God is. I want to know Him. Really know Him. And I want to know if He is kind.”

I’m sure God was nodding because: He wants the same thing!

Proverbs 8:17 (ESV): I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

He wants us to really know Him.

He wants us to ask Him the tough questions – to dig in His Word for answers.

So I went on Annie’s journey with her. I had not experienced the same heartaches she had (mostly singleness), but we all have our own disappointments to work through.

No one is exempt.

Annie points out, “Everyone wants something they don’t have. Everyone can point to a place in their life that feels like a barren wasteland. Even if someone was in their best season ever, and you handed them a microphone and asked, ‘What do you want that you don’t have,’ they’d still be able to give you an answer.”

She goes on with this wisdom beyond her years: “That’s what makes life feel like a wilderness, to me at least, which is exactly where the Israelites were located when God provided them with manna. In the wilderness. This entire planet is about wilderness, but God is about manna. The journey of life is not a matter of finding our way out of the wilderness but finding the manna inside the wilderness.”

Hosea 2:14 (CSB): Therefore, I am going to persuade her, lead her to the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

“He Himself had been the manna.” ~Annie F. Downs

“He is better than we realize.” ~Annie’s friend Anna

I’ll be honest, I thought I had the ending to this book pegged early on, but boy was I wrong.

I was feeling especially cocky about halfway through her 40-day list of looking for God. When she encountered a particularly hard situation, she decided to rewrite her list by hand. She says, “I [rewrote] it because His kindness had been manna for me, in so many different forms and places and faces. I did it because I’d felt His rescue in a deeper and truer way than I could ever have expected. I did it because sometimes healing is immediate, and that’s certainly God’s kindness, but sometimes healing doesn’t happen like we picture it, and somehow that’s God’s kindness too.”

See what I mean? Think you know where this book is going?

Side Note: Join our challenge to handwrite a verse a day!

You would be wrong – just like I was.

To further lure us into that thinking, she says, “I can’t pretend my soul hasn’t been weathered. It has. I’m rougher for it. I have a limp that will not heal. Yet maybe … Maybe the limp IS the healing.”

Genesis 32:24-26 (ESV): And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

If you’ve been in Christian circles for any length of time, you’ve no doubt heard these types of explanations before.

And don’t get me wrong – there’s a reason for that!

But this book doesn’t end up tied neatly with a bow.

Real life is rarely neat.

I’m not planning to tell you the surprise ending of the book.

But I will give you a hint …

“… the most beautiful thing is not the empty places being filled, but the empty places being seen.”

Ponder that for a minute.

If you struggle with disappointment, and don’t want pat answers, this book is for you.

And whatever you do, don’t skip the Epilogue – where she takes an honest look at what was (and wasn’t) born from her year of wrestling through these tough questions.

I promise you’ll be able to relate – and you’ll be blessed.