In a follow-up to the hard-hitting Created to Be A Help Meet by Debbi Pearl, her husband Michael Pearl penned a long-anticipated book for husbands.  Many women, having read the book for women have asked, often in desperation, for a matching book for their husbands.  And now it is finally here.  Hopefully.

Having never read the book for women, my review will be focused on this book only and will not compare it to the original, which, as far as impact and results in our marriages, is viewed in very high regard in my circles.

Created to Need A Help Meet is an easy read; you will probably finish it in a few days.  It is actually the most entertaining book for husbands I have ever read, but that isn’t saying a lot, this type of book is usually very dry.

As any book, Created has good and bad.  On the positive side, the book has wonderful tips for husbands, some hard-hitting words for those husbands among us who need it, and some great humor.  You’ll be sharing quips from this book for a long time.  A few negatives exist as well, and we’ll get in to those towards as well.  At the end, we’ll discuss one of the central teachings of this book, which I have not yet decided whether I completely agree with.

Let’s get started with the positives.  And if this is too much detail, let me just give you the bottom line: read this book. Read the rest of this entry »

“And so it goes with God.”

My wife and I experienced The Life of Pi in 3D the other night.  We were both delighted with the visual experience and fanciful story.  It is truly a wonderful movie in many ways.  The story was simple and captivating, and the acting was very believable.  However, the really outstanding part of this movie was the visuals, which I don’t believe I have ever seen the equal to in a movie of this type.

The thing that interested me more than anything about this movie was the talk of it being spiritual, and in some sense proving the existence of God.  Back in 2010, President Obama wrote Yann Martel, the author of the book: “My daughter and I just finished reading Life of Pi together. Both of us agreed we prefer the story with animals. It is a lovely book — an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling. Thank you.”

So what is this “proof of God” that Obama mentioned?  Well, I’ll tell you what I saw, and I will try to spoil as little of the movie as possible for those of you who have not seen it.

The first part of the movie begins with the hero as a young boy getting interested in God.  He is first a Hindu because of his family, and then learns about Jesus from a priest.  Afterwards (it almost seems like this part is added to appease the Political Correctness Police) he also learns about Islam.  The young lad decides to follow all three religions to the chagrin of his atheist father, who warns him to begin with “reason” before he blindly believes a religion.  In a scene set in the future, we see that this boy, as a grown man still holds to the same belief that all religions are equal, and all gods are valid … even doubt has a prominent place, as he puts it.  Basically, our hero is preaching a relativistic view of faith.  In his view, all faiths are equally true and valid.

Somewhere along the way we are told that this story might prove the existence of God.  We know by this time that this god will not Christian idea of God, but rather god in the sense of a “higher power.”  As the story progresses you see the young man’s faith in god (not any particular god) grow and it is actually quite good to see him praying and calling out to god in his troubles.  In fact, as a Christian, it is quite easy to enjoy the story Read the rest of this entry »