how to survive a shipwreck -- a book review

Jonathan Martin's How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here is a unique blend of Pentecostal faith with a yearning for something richer and deeper than the sometimes superficial approach to faith found in charismatic Christianity.  Martin uses the image of a shipwreck -- he himself is an avid sailor -- as a metaphor for what happens in those times when our lives are overwhelmed by forces beyond our control, and we find ourselves cast adrift from all that we have known to be familiar and secure.  However, lest you imagine that this book might offer a detached analysis of such crises and a formulaic recipe for how to overcome them, let me reassure you:  Nothing could be further from the truth.

How to Survive a Shipwreck is a deeply faithful, theological reflection on Martin's own experience of shipwreck.  In this case, it's a literal shipwreck of his own making which, while he doesn't recount the gory details, he lets us know cost him -- at the very least -- his church and his marriage.  As such, he speaks to the reader with an unvarnished rawness and immediacy which, surprisingly in a genre cluttered with so much pablum, lends his writing a refreshing vitality and an undeniable ring of faith.  What we find here, far from being a token life vest thrown to us amid the broiling waves, is someone who is in the water with us, empathizing and offering much-needed words of hope and encouragement.

This is the book for those who find their own lives thrown about by the waves of circumstance.  This is the book for exploring the fact that, for all its horror and fearfulness, in the hands of our redeeming God even the worst shipwreck can become the very experience through which we find both God and ourselves in a new and deeper way.  This is not the book for simple answers and platitudes.  Instead, this is the book for genuine Christian hope -- a hope in the middle of the harsh reality of whatever kind of storm happens to have engulfed you.

In short, How to Survive a Shipwreck is a book that speaks to mind and heart in the midst of the storm, and brings us back to focus on the God who calms storms in Jesus Christ.  It's a book that grabbed me at just that time in my life that I needed to hear it.  With all the gift of poet, and all the heart of a pastor, Martin has given we Christians a real gift -- especially Christians who live in the real world and find ourselves struggling against the waves and the waters up to our necks.  Martin's is the voice that God has used today to breathe new life and hope into my wounded, fearful heart.  I pray it will do the same for you too.

__________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers <http://booklookbloggers.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”