Ravi Zacharias. The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives. Zondervan, 2007. 200 pp.

Many know the name Ravi Zacharias from his radio program Let My People Think. Wikipedia describes Zacharias as “an Indian-born, Canadian-American evangelical Christian philosopher, apologist and evangelist.” Zacharias was born in India in 1946 and immigrated to Canada with his family twenty years later. His website says that “While pursuing a career in business management, his interest in theology grew; subsequently, he pursued this study during his undergraduate education. He received his Masters of Divinity from Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois.”

Zacharias speaks and writes on a number of topics, all related to the idea of apologetics, defending the Christian faith. He does so in a compassionate yet thoughtful manner, appearing on CNN and other international broadcasts. In the book The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives, Zacharias sets out to answer the objection that life is little more than a series of disconnected, unrelated events, guiding by nothing more than chance. in other words, he is applying the idea of Intelligent Design, not to DNA or weather, but to the everyday events of our lives. Zondervan’s synopsis reads:

With inspiring stories and thought-provoking questions, Ravi Zacharias traces the multiple threads of our lives, describing how the unseen hand of God guides our joys, our tragedies, our daily humdrum to weave a pattern of divine providence and meaning.

As the title suggests, Zacharias centers the book around the imagery of a weaver. At the beginning and from close-up, it is nearly impossible to detect the pattern in the mind of the weaver. It takes time, effort and different threads before the beautiful pattern begins to emerge. Zacharias traces eight different “threads,” showing how each of them “matters” in our lives and has been orchestrated by a Grand Weaver (each chapter name follows the pattern: “Your _____ Matters, Your DNA, Disappointments, Calling, Morality, Spirituality, Will, Worship and Destiny”). Zacharias himself says that this book is about

seeing the designing hand of God and his intervention in our lives in such a way that we know he has a specific purpose for each of us and that he will carry us through until we meet him face-to-face and know ourselves completely.

Zacharias taps into that nagging suspicion we all hold: life has a meaning. He examines our family heritage, our sense of abstract “spirituality,” and the fact that we naturally worship. Though this book is likely to convince a true skeptic, I doubt that’s its purpose. Instead, it will prod those who have nagging suspicions that there is more to life. Zacharias examines many of life’s most desperate moments to show how they have meaning (and therefore we can have hope) only if there is indeed, a “Grand Weaver.”

While it is a well-written book, it is not a convincing argument. Zacharias has left himself open to the argument that he is simply “preaching to the choir.” Though the illustrations provided are often quite touching, much of their power comes from the fact that I am already a believer and see the “weaving hand” behind them. A skeptic might have a few sentimental moments, but is likely to have little more as a result of this book. For others, Zacharias provides many examples of God’s sovereignty in a practical sense, something many of us need to be reminded of time and time again.

• Read The Grand Weaver yourself
• Visit Ravi Zacharias’ official website
• Visit Zondervan’s page for the book