God’s Story Your Story: When His Becomes Yours

You’ve got to love Lucado’s homeboy way of spinning a yarn. Pastor and author of more than 60 books, he uses his signature style in his latest release. The theme is the ordinary. God writes his story by stepping into yours and vice versa. The grand story of human fall and redemption is filled with characters from the Bible and also from real life. We’ve got Joseph and Mary presented as Norm and Norma (because they’re so “normal”) and neighbors such as Holden, Carl, and Aunt Wanda. Lucado is the master of disarming vernacular: Jesus “slam dunks” the devil, and the devil responds by tempting Jesus to “show off in church.” The book could have been a hopeful presentation because Lucado’s narrative voice is so doggone likable. Unfortunately, it is formulaic to a fault: heavy with Bible verses; bloated with anecdotes; and stuffed with redundant rhetorical questions. Lucado himself captures the feeling this book will leave some readers with in his description of what “ticks off” the devil: “reading a Christian book, thinking godly thoughts, dreaming about heaven and other such blah-blah-blah.” Others, doggone it, are just gonna like it. (Sept.)