Customer Reviews
Recommended - By: D. Ayling, 11 Nov 2008 
I think that this is an excellent & an honest book about answered & unanswered prayer. The fact that Pete explores the issues & is honest about the subject makes it a book that I have recommended to others to read. I could identify very much with the struggle to understand why God doesn't always appear to answer prayerin the way that we want or would hope for. Pete doesn't try to excuse God which is always a trap we can fall into. I likedin particular his exploration of Easter Saturday. I wasn't particularly drawn to it by the title but I guess it does draw attention to itself among the shelves of so many books & is probably very post modern!
The Best - By: L. H. De Laune, 15 Jan 2008 This is quite simply the best, most honest inspiring & hopeful book on 'why prayers are unanswered' I have read (and I have read many)
As a chronic pain sufferer who has passed on my condition to my 2 children & am watching my parents daily deterioration, I found this author to be profoundly inspiring & encouraging.
Honest, intelligent, and funny as well - By: Tom, 05 Dec 2007 Pete Greig is a very committed Christian, who founded a prayer movement called 24-7. 24-7 has been hugely influential, has spread across the globe & has generated literally thousands upon thousands of amazing stories of answered prayer. So when Pete's wife Samie has a terrifying fit, is diagnosed with a massive brain tumour, has brain surgery & is left with epilepsy, Pete is ideally placed to pray for her & see her illness healed & her epilepsy disappear. Isn't he?
That isn't how things work out. Pete prays all right, & so do many others, but the sickness remains. So here you have the leader of a global prayer movement, who really knows the power of prayer & sees prayers answered all the time, having to wrestle with the fact that his own prayers for something that desperately, desperately matters to him aren't being answered at all. How can he reconcile this with his faith?
The result is one of the best Christian books I've readin a long time, one of those books that you keep buying extra copies of to give away. It is written with honesty & integrity: not trying to sugar-coat the pain of what he & Samie have been through, but wrestling with it & trying to understand it. Pete has brought together a great many strands of theological thought, & has made them accessible. This should be compulsory reading for every Christian.
A very honest book - By: Jenfire, 29 Oct 2007 This is the book that many people have been waiting for & certainly one I found very real & relevant to me. Pete is writing from the heart of his experiences of coping with his wife Samie's diagnosis of a brain tumour just as the 24-7 prayer movement that he "accidently" found himself heading up (a whole other book which is another amazing read- "Red moon rising")was really taking off, & closer to home, just after he & his wife had their second baby. A turbulent enough time for any family with a new baby & managing an exploding international prayer phenomenon, without the devastating news that Samie has to undergo life saving surgery. The book's subtitle is "engaging the silence of unanswered prayer" & on many levels their major prayer was answered, Samie survived the brain tumour, however she is left with a severe form of epilepsy which has a major impact on her & Pete's day to day life & that of trying to bring up a young family. This is the main crux of the book, her life is saved but why is she left with this condition & how does it benefit anyone? Pete sums it up here on page 133 of the book..."for me, it has been the relentless battle with Samie's epilepsy during the past six years rather than the initial diagnosis of her tumour that has provoked me to address the painful reality of unanswered prayer. Why doesn't God heal her? Is the problem my unbelief? Is it a matter of spiritual warfare? Is it simply the Fall? Why doesn't Jesus do what He did 2,000 years ago? Is it His will for Samie to suffer? Why would He want such a thing? I wouldn't wish seizures on my worst enemy. It's not as though another assault on my wife's body is going to further world peace or even deepen our faithin a way that the previous 10 seizures did not." This is the honesty & humour that is demonstrated throughout the book, but it isn't just a personal memoir, Pete has a backgroundin theology that adds great weight to the book which is cleverly crafted from start to finish around the events of Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday with a great message of hope & faith despite the pain.
Invitation to Engage - By: Tom Jamieson, 30 Jul 2007 There's no way I can be objective about Pete Greig's writing as its impact on me over the last three years has been massive & at the heart of a whole resurgence of energy for God & the kingdom coming that is marking my life & relationships just now. But I'll try ...
God on Mute is the best grapple with the agonising question of un-answered prayer that I know. It is for real. Primarily because it springs out of Pete & Samie's story of what is so very demandingin their lives. But also for the way it connects with the experience of Jesus: facing his fearin Gethsemane; utterly alone on the cross; dead silentin the tomb; speaking into his friends' deepest fears on the day of Resurrection. I have wept with this book. And I know I will return to it for its specific teaching which is well organised & accessible, not only for individual readers but as a resource for group study & reflection.
The overall impact for me is a challenge about being more bold, specific & persistentin intercession; I realise that the main reason I don't know the real agony of un-answered prayer is that so much of my praying has been so open-ended that it would be hard to determine what was answer & what was lack-of-answer. Through Pete's writing God is inviting me to a much deeper engagement than that.
