Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud

by Philip Yancey

"Is God listening? and Can He be trusted?" In this book, Yancey tackles the questions caused by a God who doesn't always do what we think he's supposed to do.

Philip Yancey has a gift for articulating the knotty issues of faith. In Disappointment with God, he poses three questions that Christians wonder but seldom ask aloud: Is God unfair? Is he silent? Is he hidden? This insightful and deeply personal book points to the odd disparity between our concept of God and the realities of life. Why, if God is so hungry for relationship with us, does he seem so distant? Why, if he cares for us, do bad things happen? What can we expect from him after all? Yancey answers these questions with clarity, richness, and biblical assurance. He takes us beyond the things that make for disillusionment to a deeper faith, a certitude of God's love, and a thirst to reach not just for what God gives, but for who he is.

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Paperback, 304 pages

Published March 31st 1992 by Zondervan (first published 1988)

tags: theology, spirituality, faith, christianity, christian non fiction, religion, inspirational, nonfiction, christian living, christian

Book Quotes

“We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life- by expecting constant good health for example- then I set myself up for crashing disappointment.”

― Philip Yancey

“Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”

― Philip Yancey

“Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love.”

― Philip Yancey

topics: Disappointments, Love

“One bold message in the Book of Job is that you can say anything to God. Throw at him your grief, your anger, your doubt, your bitterness, your betrayal, your disappointment—he can absorb them all. As often as not, spiritual giants of the Bible are shown contending with God. They prefer to go away limping, like Jacob, rather than to shut God out. In this respect, the Bible prefigures a tenet of modern psychology: you can’t really deny your feelings or make them disappear, so you might as well express them. God can deal with every human response save one. He cannot abide the response I fall back on instinctively: an attempt to ignore him or treat him as though he does not exist. That response never once occurred to Job.”

― Philip Yancey

“Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no opportunity for faith either.”

― Philip Yancey

topics: Faith And Doubt

“Why the delay? Why does God let evil and pain so flagrantly exist, even thrive, on this planet?...He holds back for our sakes. Re-creation involves us; we are, in fact, at the center of his plan...the motive behind all human history, is to develop us, not God. Our very existence announces to the powers in the universe that restoration is under way. Every act of faith by every one of the people of God is like the tolling of a bell, and a faith like Job's reverberates throughout the universe.”

― Philip Yancey

topics: Disappointment, Faith, God, Good Versus Evil, Job

“We human beings instinctively regard the seen world as the “real” world and the unseen world as the “unreal” world, but the Bible calls for almost the opposite.”

― Philip Yancey

“True faith does not so much attempt to manipulate God to do our will as it does to position us to do his will.”

― Philip Yancey

topics: True Faith

“Some people find no comfort in the prophets’ vision of a future world. “The church has used that line for centuries to justify slavery, oppression, and all manner of injustice,” they say. The criticism sticks because the church has abused the prophets’ vision. But you will never find that “pie in the sky” rationale in the prophets themselves. They have scathing words about the need to care for widows and orphans and aliens, and to clean up corrupt courts and religious systems. The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.”

― Philip Yancey

topics: Philip Yancey

“Somehow, that “faith” was what God valued, and it soon became clear that faith was the best way for humans to express a love for God.”

― Philip Yancey

“La fe consiste en creer por anticipado algo que solo tendrá sentido cuando se mire hacia el pasado.”

― Philip Yancey

“My slowness to act is a sign of mercy, not of weakness.”

― Philip Yancey

“«Nosotros, sin Dios, no podemos. Dios, sin nosotros, no quiere», decía San Agustín.”

― Philip Yancey

“El poder consigue todo, menos lo más importante: no puede controlar el amor.”

― Philip Yancey

“«El problema de Dios no es que no sea capaz de hacer ciertas cosas. Su problema es que él ama. El amor le complica la vida a Dios, como se la complica a cualquiera”1.”

― Philip Yancey

“Can we live now “as if” God is loving, gracious, merciful, and all-powerful, even while the blinders of time are obscuring our vision? The”

― Philip Yancey

“«No te olvides en las tinieblas de lo que aprendiste en la luz»,”

― Philip Yancey

“Un osado mensaje que encontramos en el libro de Job es que a Dios se le puede decir lo que se desee. Arroje ante él su angustia, su ira, sus dudas, su amargura, su dolor por sentirse traicionado, su desilusión.”

― Philip Yancey

“En cambio, Jesucristo nunca obligó a nadie a creer en él. Prefería actuar por medio de la atracción, sacando a los humanos de sí mismos para atraerlos hacia él.”

― Philip Yancey

“Si Dios se dedicara a enviar rayos como respuesta a las malas doctrinas, nuestro planeta brillaría como un árbol navideño.”

― Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey is an American Christian author. Fourteen million of his books have been sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling evangelical Christian authors. Two of his books have won the ECPA's Christian Book of the Year Award: The Jesus I Never Knew in 1996, What's So Amazing About Grace in 1998. He is published by Zondervan Publishing.

Yancey was born in Atlanta, Georgia. When Yancey was one year old, his father, stricken with polio, died after his church elders suggested he go off life support in faith that God would heal him. This was one of the reasons he had lost his faith at one point of time. Yancey earned his MA with highest honors from the graduate school of Wheaton College. His two graduate degrees in Communications and English were earned from Wheaton College Graduate School and the University of Chicago.

Yancey moved to Chicago, Illinois, and in 1971 joined the staff of Campus Life magazine--a sister publication of Christianity Today directed towards high school and college students--where he served as editor for eight years. Yancey was for many years an editor for Christianity Today and wrote articles for Reader's Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Eternity, Moody Monthly, and National Wildlife, among others. He now lives in Colorado, working as a columnist and editor-at-large for Christianity Today. He is a member of the editorial board of Books and Culture, another magazine affiliated with Christianity Today, and travels around the world for speaking engagements.
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