RADICAL GRATITUDE:
Recalibrating Your Heart In An Age Of
Entitlement
By Peter Maiden
IVP. 137 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 789 741 858
How do we respond to issues, trials, petty annoyances and lockdown? Does our response mark us as Christians or, when suffering rears its head, do we challenge God and expect a return on all the investments we have made on His behalf ?
The late Peter Maiden (obituary en September 2020) begins this book with an honest account of his son’s serious illness and his battle with the sense that God owed him an answer to his prayers. He then takes the reader on to consider how entitled we feel and the current narcissism in society that feeds this myth.
The chapter ends with a reflection on Psalm 73, and each chapter ends with a relevant Biblical study to root the subject in Scripture.
Of great worth
This is not a weighty book nor a hard book to read, but that does not detract from its worth. It is a great book to read as part of a group, using the reflections in each chapter for discussion. The language is refreshingly jargon free and the use of anecdotes makes this a good book for a young Christian and an easy read for someone who is struggling. That said, I would recommend this book to any Christian at any stage.
Each chapter looks at a different aspect of gratitude, rooting it in Scripture and personal experience. It challenges our personal self-sufficiency and self-absorption, as well as looking at the thread of ingratitude that runs through the Bible; from Adam and Eve, through the Israelites in the wilderness, to the ungrateful lepers in Luke 17. Using these and other examples, Maiden shows that gratitude based on the work of the cross can take us deeper as a Christian and radically change our outlook.
Readers familiar with Maiden’s ministry will recognise his warmth in these pages. Those who did not know him will find the last chapter particularly powerful as a summary of radical gratitude.
