Life in the wild

Judging a book by its cover can be hit-and-miss, little wonder an old English idiom warns against doing so – ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ it goes. Looking at the front cover of Life in the wild, I wondered what the average reader would think of it. Personally, I was curious to know why fierce looking thorns were closing in on the book title; in no time, I spotted the subtitle – fighting for faith in a fallen world, and then it made sense. Given the book’s main thesis, it is indeed an apt choice of cover page.

The first few chapters of the Bible paint a picture of life before and life after the fall that stand in stark contrast one to the other. In 124 easy-to-read pages, Dan DeWitt guides the reader on a tour of this ‘grace to grass’ story, lending his voice to the Bible’s verdict on life after the fall. He leaves the reader in no doubt that the personal troubles we face, and the myriads of bad news that make the headlines are not at all disconnected from Genesis 3. If anything, they are the result of it! Following on in the steps of the Bible, the author doesn’t leave it at that, but balances the grim reality of life marred by the consequence of sin with the hope of the gospel.

Dan DeWitt writes with the right dose of empathy and candour, all the while cautiously avoiding an over-representation or under-representation of the Bible, for example on the issue of God’s good design for human flourishing.

Flipping through the pages, one hears the author’s appeal for readers to ‘listen and learn’, an expression he uses in contrast to the option to ‘live and learn’.  In answer to the serpent’s age old question and its various versions: “Did God really say?”, DeWitt emphatically responds: “Yes. God did really say. And Jesus obeyed his word perfectly. So, fix your eyes on him.”

The point the author makes throughout this book is that living well in a broken world is a fight for faith. Without being overly pessimistic, he helps the reader manage their expectations of the Christian life experience by acknowledging on one hand, the combative nature of life in the wild, and God’s sustaining grace on the other.

Now we live in the wild, yet God’s promise of an end that upends all that ever went wrong remains, and so we anticipate that glorious day he will welcome us home, out of the wild.

Reading this book left me with a heightened sense of hope and delight in a promised future that is sure. As such, it’s one I would recommend to just about anyone, and that’s because the matter he addresses is one that affects us all – “life sucks! What are you going to do about it?”

Thanks for reading!

Sike Osinuga