The Cure: What if God isn’t who you think He is and neither are you. John Lynch, Bruce McNicol, Bill Thrall. 120 pp. NavPress, 2011

Tyler Schuhly

4th-year Dual-level in Psychology and Counseling

February 27, 2018.

There are a few things about the book, The Cure, that make it perfect for a college student to pick up and start reading. First, the page length (let’s be honest, short books are more appealing to us busy college folk) and two, it is written in both a fiction and nonfiction way. It literally has something for everyone; a story that draws the reader in and that plays as a film in their head as they read it, life application that is more than just “fix-it facts” but a life-changing premise, theology that is presented in a way that many people (including myself) haven’t heard put the way The Cure puts it, and more. Name something that you are looking for in a book and The Cure…may…have it. But wait! Even if it doesn’t, it has a message that all of us need to hear!

The Cure starts off with a story that is revisited throughout the rest of the book, it presents a guy who is standing at a fork in a road. Both paths look nice and scenic, so he reads the signs. The sign pointing left says “pleasing God”, while the sign pointing right says “trusting God.” Hmm, a predicament many of us have either found ourselves in or are in, even if we don’t know it. The man thinks to himself, well they both seem good, so I’ll go left. As he is strolling down the path, he encounters many different people, some of which he stops and talks to and hears their stories. He eventually comes upon a house with a sign on it the reads, “The Room of Good Intentions.” He goes in to find a very elegant looking room full of people that appear to be filled with happiness and seem to be loving life! This feeling soon starts to fade, as a subtle feeling of anxiety starts to fill him. The more he looks at the people in the room, the hollower they seem. He eventually finds his way out of the room, back along the path and onto the other path. This path leads to a building with a sign that reads, “The Room of Grace.” He walks in and invited to an experience unlike any he has ever had.

All throughout the book, the story is cut off to explain how the reader is living life like the character. I initially was reading excitedly, anticipating the next section of the story. It didn’t take long, however, for me to resonate with the truth that was being told in between the sections of the story and reflect on those truths long after I had set the book down. I began to not only enjoy the story but looked forward to how my world would be rocked by the next snippet of truth. Things like, “What if repentance wasn’t a promise from you to God but a gift from God to you?” or “The quality of your life is based in trusting this: Where you are right now is the perfect place for you, or the God of all goodness and power would not allow you to be there.” The Cure is absolutely filled with truth that needs to be understood, unfortunately, many Christians today do not know it.

The authors of The Cure so beautifully incorporated everything that a person desires in a book. It may be the first book that I have ever read that I would classify as both fiction and nonfiction and they absolutely nailed both aspects. They touch on topics in the nonfiction sections that so intimately apply to any Christian’s life; and with the story, everything is amazing! The picture that is painted in the reader’s mind as you read through it, the content of the story and how everyone who reads can relate, and how regardless which section you are reading, fiction or fact, you are excited to read whatever the authors have in store.

I found as I read that it didn’t take long for me to replace the character in the book with myself. If you are struggling with this thing called sin, which let me tell ya, YOU ARE! Then you need to find out what this book has to say about it and how it distorts our image of ourselves and of God.