Book Review Special

For one of our own

When I first met Bradley Gray , and by met I mean found him on Substack, I happened to click on one of his sermons. In that moment, I realized that he was saturated with the Gospel (which is something I love to see and long to nurture in my own life). He spoke with passion and clarity. You could hear the longing in his voice for people to see what he had seen, for them to experience what he had experienced, and for them to love what he loved. And, like the excited, and maybe slightly embarrassing human that I am, I commented and voiced that I loved his preaching.

Then I found his book…

There’s something that compels a person to wholeheartedly embrace and love the Gospel, and I felt it during Bradley’s sermon. He didn’t preach for entertainment or to amuse the audience. He preached with one goal: to show his people his glorious God. But where did this passion come from? What made him love his God so much?

I can’t speak for Brad (I hope I can call him Brad…) in answering this question, but when I read his book, I think it tells us plainly.

Finding God In The Darkness: Hopeful Reflections From The Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment

I think the answer is clear already as you read this title above 👆🏻. It is suffering and God being with us. This is the Gospel that I can see stirring in my new friend’s heart. One of the things that he says in the first chapter is,

And, as it happens, life has a way of pushing you over the edge and into a pit. Indeed, I’ve come to believe that God wants us precisely in that spot where faith in him is all we have.

And this book breathes this very message. He wants you to see his faithful and gracious God who enters your suffering. He wants you to hear his story and he wants to entice your heart to believe. Because he has personally seen and known what God can do. I think this drives him.

Brad’s book unveils a story of a moment of pain, confusion, suffering, and fear. You watch him pour out his life in honest detail. He holds nothing back from you about what he truly thought and felt when his world crashed down around him. He opens his life before us and essentially says, “do you see?”

He speaks of his mom being sick, his dog dying, a move that seemed right but wasn’t, his dad, and to my surprise, his vast knowledge of movies.

The book is filled with movie references: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Inside Out, Scooby Doo, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Lord of the Rings, The Shining, Groundhog Day and more!

But, what I love about this is how he takes all parts of life, like the movies he watches, and uses them to emphasize things that relate to the Gospel. More than this, he takes us through scripture. You can feel his love for the scripture in everything he produces, not just this book. But, the book only magnifies what is pouring out of his gospel-saturated heart.

The main thing he tries to tackle in this book is: Suffering. He unravels these biblical stories and shows them in relation to how they handled suffering. He shows that suffering, at times, doesn’t make sense, and at one point, he says,

..suffering is itself illogical. So long as this earth is our home, it ought not make sense.

More than this, he points out that while in suffering, many things aren’t as romantic as they seem. He speaks of how memorizing more scripture isn’t the only answer and how his mom was working hard at this in her time of suffering. He speaks of the responses that are common from people trying to give comfort, but how in the moment, they aren’t always comforting.

He’s so honest about the reality of suffering and how someone truly faces it. He doesn’t come off as one with a golden answer. But writes humbly as he points to Christ.

Because, as he points out, there isn’t always an answer, nor does God tell us everything we want to know.

He says,

We want there to be a reason for it all. We need there to be a reason for it all. We are obsessively fixated on the notion that there is something or someone to blame for our plight. There has to be some explanation for the ruin. Yet, for forty-two chapters, Job is given none. For the twelve chapters of Ecclesiastes, the wisest man who ever lived finds little reason to keep doing so.

All of this is wrapped up in the blanket of scripture. Brad writes of Job, David, Ecclesiastes, Solomon, Rehoboam, and Christ. In chapter 6 he describes how doctors couldn’t give clear answers and how their family felt stuck in endless waiting. This resulted in questions like, “How long will this last?” And “why isn’t help coming?” Suffering spread and affected the whole family.

Brad points out that God’s plans often look confusing or absent in these moments but serve a greater purpose. The book beautifully shows that suffering is coming, it often times doesn’t make sense, and it blinds us. We don’t understand it and often times can’t tell what God is doing.

But, in the midst of it, the Bible shows that God is still in charge. When things look random, cruel, or pointless, he’s still there, and his providence is usually hidden in the darkest moments. More than this, sometimes the very worst situations become the stage where God’s power and goodness are eventually revealed. Brad shows us a God who loves dark dramas, who suffers with us, and through everything we go through, he is never absent, and is quietly at work in the darkness.

Personal Interaction

The first time I read this book, I found out that my dad had cancer, and was thinking about my wife’s chronic pain. I remember how much everything in this book was so real for me. That’s what I think is special about it: It’s going to be something I continually reread for encouragement, because suffering will always find its way in my life. It will always find its way in your life, too.

This is a great book for those moments.

I encourage you to get Finding God in the Darkness and read it. Especially if you are struggling today. It isn’t filled with cliché remedies or any flashy “how-to’s.” Rather, it’s filled with what we really need: Christ.

That’s who Bradley Gray wants you to look at.

Thanks Bradley Gray for putting in the work to provide such a great book that will help me through hard times.

To purchase this book click here: Finding God In The Darkness

Also, I encourage you to subscribe to Bradley Gray’s Substack! There’s so much more of his writing there!

Cling to Christ!