Book Review: Enjoying God

I think we have a right and proper focus on glorifying God. The fifth sola is Sola Deo Gloria – God’s Glory Alone. The Westminster Catechism question 1 asks ‘What is man’s chief end?’ The answer is, ‘to glorify God’. Paul says that ‘whether we eat or drink we should do all to the glory of God’ (1 Cor 10:31).

But what we don’t talk about too much is the bit I missed from the answer to the catechism question ‘… and enjoy Him forever.’ What does it look like to enjoy God? How do we have joy in all circumstances (a command in the New Testament). How do we have real joy? How do we ‘rejoice in the Lord always’? ‘And again I say, Rejoice!’ (Phil 4:4)

Tim Chester has done the church a great service by giving us a book on this very topic. In Enjoying God, Tim beautifully presents a picture of what it looks like to enjoy God in everyday life. It is not primarily about enjoying God during the Sunday worship – it is about enjoying God during the Monday train ride or the Tuesday nappy change.

Enjoying God: Experience the power and love of God in everyday life

by Tim Chester

I loved two main things about this book – it is intensely everyday, and it is cleverly practical.

Most of us live in the everyday. We commute, work, look after kids, sin, suffer, get rained on (it will make sense if you read the book). Tim gets this and takes great efforts to describe how we can enjoy God in this everyday life.

In order to do this, Tim presents application in a variety of ways. He has a very mundane everyday story that keeps popping up throughout the book which helps the reader see what Enjoying God might look like on a typical Monday. He gives the reader just one simple task to do at the end of each chapter which is very achievable. I found these helpful in terms of practically understanding what Tim was discussing in each chapter.

I doubt this review really does the book justice and so in closing I’d like to say that I found this to be a book that helped me understand more of what it means to commune with God and enjoy Him throughout everyday life. More than that, this is a book that I found changed how I lived – it changed my perspective. I will be returning to this book, giving it to many people and recommending it to even more. And I’ll start that now – I recommend that you read Enjoying God.