Plan B [Paperback]

There are a few key cities in American Christendom. Tulsa is the Mecca of the Gotta Have Faith movement. Colorado Springs is the center of all things evangelical. Nashville (or as some people refer to it as Nashvegas) is the city where Entertainment and Christianity have blended together into its own special synchristic religion.

When I review a book written by one of the pastors in these cities, I usually have an idea of the book's bent. As I picked up this book by Pete Wilson, pastor of the Cross Point Church in Nashville, I assumed it would have the "Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me" flair. I mean the guy already looks like Keith Urban, why not use his lyrics too? Pete has a successful church with multiple campuses, a pretty blonde wife, three young boys, a popular blog, and now he's even published a book with a green cover that we can add to the list of everything we envy about him.

There are shelves of books on the Christian market that talk about the Good Life. There is a lot of preaching from our pulpits about the promises that will be ours if we pop our coins in their Christian slot machines. Problem is it's a losing gamble. More often than not, there is no payoff and we are left as broke and broken people.

Pete could have written about the good life. He didn't. Instead he wrote about the life that most of us live--when God hasn't shown up for us the way we thought, and have been sold, that he would. We all have an idea of what our life should look like, our Plan A. When that doesn't materialize, what will happen when we turn to Plan B?

Pete could have filled his book with stories of people who have made it. He could have included illustrations of people who faced adversity but overcame it to be even more successful than they once were. Instead, Pete shares stories of people who were well on their way and then it all crashed down around them. Some of their situations never bettered themselves--even when they tried playing the country music backwards they found out the return of their life as they knew it was just a Nashville joke.

Pete could have shared the Bible Stories in his book in such a way that all God-followers become prophets, priests and kings. Instead he shows how those in the scripture who actually had those titles were not strangers to disappointments and failures themselves.

Here's a taste of what Pete shares:

"We spend a lot of time worried about what is happening to us. We focus a lot of attention on when things might happen. We ask a lot of questions about where we will end up. Often in life, the what, when and where are not going to turn out the way you want them to turn out. You don't always get to choose those things, but you do get to choose the why. You may not get to choose what your future is going to be, but at any given time you do get to choose why you're living the way you do."

Pete could have shared 10 steps toward victory, overcoming, or finding perfect will of God for their life. Instead, Plan B, discusses how to keep living, how to keep breathing, how to have hope when life simply hasn't turned out.

"When people ask me how they can know God's will for their lives, I tell them the best first step is to know God. Beyond that, I really don't have any steps."

Have I made this book sound like a downer? It isn't. It's very real and very encouraging. Reading these pages I didn't feel so alone.

If Your Best Life Now, hasn't arrived. Or if it did but its stay was way too short, consider reading Plan B--not for Pete's sake, but for yours.

After watching the news for the last few weeks, I think possibly more than ever, this book came out at exactly the right time. As I watch oil creep towards the beaches in the Gulf of Mexico, and as the flood waters recede from Nashville, I think many people are seeing their "Plan A" going down the drain and are wondering what to do, and I think this book really lives up to it's title when addressing our Plan B.
Pete has done a fantastic job with this book. I think most of us go through life expecting everything to go just as we planned it. To get that great job, find that perfect companion and get married, buy a great house and raise our 2.5 kids, and retire somewhere to gracefully live out our days watching our children and grandchildren. But realistically, that isn't always how it happens. You've yet to find that perfect mate, or maybe they walked out on you because they didn't want to be married anymore. That great job you had laid you off last year and you haven't been able to find steady work since. Maybe you've had kids, and one of them develops cancer, or they take a wrong turn and end up in jail. In an instant, all those things you've planned for go up in flames.

Pete doesn't pull any punches in his book, nor does he admit he has all the answers. I think that's one of the great things about the book. For everyone, our situations are a little different, and no one has all the answers, and Pete explains how to work through Plan B in our lives, but admits that he's walking the same path as the rest of us. I love the illustrations and stories that he uses throughout the book to illustrate different aspects of our lives and how we can learn to accept things when they don't work out the way we intended them.

I really enjoy the part where Pete talks about idols, and how Plan A in our lives for pretty much all of us turns into an idol.

Not many of us walk around saying, "I worship my stuff. I worship my job. I worship this pleasure. I worship her. I worship my body. I worship my dream.> But the trail never lies. In the end our worship, our idolatry, is more about what we do than what we say. And I think for those of us in the midst of a Plan B we'll discover that one of our idols all along has been a picture of the way life should be. Our idol was an expectation or a dream.

I have never thought about that before, and I think it's very true, at least in my life. Pete also talks about how God uses our Plan B in our lives. God will always take these situations in our lives where we have pain and struggle, and will never fail at the opportunity to show us how much he loves us. God never destroys our lives, but he does allow us to make our own decisions, even when those decisions take us farther away from God.

Pete also discusses our timing versus God's timing, especially in a Plan B situation. As Pete says, we often wonder where God is, why are things going so badly, and why do I continue to struggle through this pain for years and years. Too often, we want that pain to be over as quickly as possible, and we scream at God when it doesn't happen in our timing. Pete talks about the fact that God's timing is nothing like ours, and if there is a reason the pain is allowed to go on, maybe God is working in your life and his timing isn't ready for you to be out of this season in life. A tough thing to swallow, that's for sure, but very true.

I especially liked the illustration Pete used that explains why, when we're in a painful situation, we think God isn't there. In all reality, maybe we've pulled away from God, and he's been right here all along, just waiting on us to come back to him. He's never left us. This was something I've never really considered, and too many times I've asked God where he was, why wasn't he fixing this, why weren't my plans coming true. When in all reality, maybe I've been the one running from God and he's never left me, but instead, I've tried to leave him.

This book was absolutely fantastic, and I would highly recommend everyone pick this up. Even if you don't read it right now, or things are going according to your plan for life; sooner or later, you're going to run into a Plan B, and I think this book is an excellent instruction manual to help you deal with and makes it through those situations in your life. Pete has done a fantastic job with this book, and I'm really looking forward to reading the next book that he writes.

Any time I pick up a book that approaches a topic from a faith standpoint, especially from a new author, my hyper-analytical antenna raise. In a day where celebrity can become more important than the message it is important to test the messenger and the message.

Pete Wilson is the pastor of Cross Point church in Nashville, TN and the author of WithoutWax.tv blog. The book, Plan B, mirrors the message and the person that he presents in both the church and blog mediums.

Plan B is a book intended to help the reader deal with those moments in life where things have not turned out the way they had dreamed or hoped. Let's face it, most of us have either had one of those moments or will. Someone once said that life is what happens when we are planning for it. So how can we deal with those unexpected twists in our lives? While this book is presented from a faith standpoint and will speak very clearly to the Christian reader, it brings a lot of practical wisdom that the non-Christian reader will benefit from as well.

Pete's conversational style has a way of drawing the reader in to the inner circle of the stories he relays as examples for the lessons he has learned from his own life or from others. It is easy to laugh along and to grieve along with the persons inside that circle that Pete invites you to witness.

So what do you do when faced with that moment when the world seems to fall away from under your feet? Do you run? Do you stand paralyzed not knowing what to do? Do you struggle with who to turn to or understanding where help can come from?

I recommend you pick up Pete's book and take a journey through the process. You won't find all the answers and he is wise enough to tell you that himself in the book ... but you may find an anchor in the storm of your life that will help you weather your Plan B.