Book Review - None Like Him: Ten ways God is different from us (and why that’s a good thing)

None like him is an exploration of the attributes of God in ten easy-to-read chapters, written for normal people without a degree in Theology, a blessing for a young adult such as myself who’s in university and has little attention left for long words and complicated discussions. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of God and how that relates to us as humans, both challenging and encouraging.

Jen Wilkin is a Christian writer whose books are wonderfully balanced to be thought-provoking and informational, yet easy to read first thing in the morning before starting a day of work without over-taxing your brain. She discusses God’s infiniteness, incomprehensibility, self-existence, self-sufficiency, eternality, immutability, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, and sovereignty.

If you don’t know some of those words, don’t worry! She explains their meanings, applying them to our own lives, or our striving to those attributes ourselves, but as the title says, these attributes are different from us, and that is such a good thing. She writes this book as a woman, for women. I’m sure any men reading this are welcome to read this book too, it may not be as relevant in certain aspects, but God’s Word is always relevant, no matter the gender, age, or any other demographic.

Wilkin draws on her own experiences, and on research (as evidenced by references and a bibliography after her conclusion) to get across her message. Each chapter, each subsection, points us towards an amazing God who loves us, who we can rely on completely. Yet she doesn’t talk about this in a way that needs three re-reads to understand, referencing things we all know, such as “Narnia…Middle Earth. And Sleeping Beauty. And The Sword in the Stone. And even Star Wars,”[1] Why are these mentioned? Read it for yourself and find out! All I will say that they are absolutely relevant to what Wilkin discusses in that chapter.

Each chapter ends with verses for meditation, questions for reflection, and a reminder to pray on what’s been discussed. Whether you have a faith or not, these are a great way to think about it, reflect on it, and come to your own conclusion about what’s been written in that chapter.

This book was a real encouragement for me. As a Christian myself, I struggle with what is known as ‘Quiet Time’, taking a part of your day apart to meditate on God’s word. When I’m really struggling with this, I will often turn to books like this, written about God’s Word. While it is in no way a match for spending time myself in God’s Word, it helps and encourages me to make it through that time fo struggling, and to use my brain when taking this time, to think about what I’m reading instead of just taking in words. While challenging at times, I needed those challenges, (I have written a piece specifically about a time when this book slapped me in the face, but I hope to hand that in for my University coursework, so if I post it, it will be after that coursework has been marked), and also, I needed the comfort provided by God’s word, and by Wilkins’ application of that word.

Simply, if you’re looking for a comfortable read that will have you thinking, I suggest None Like Him, by Jen Wilkin. I'll put the link below.

- L. Hunt

[1] Jen Wilkin, None Like Him: 10 Ways God is Different from Us (and Why That’s a Good Thing), (Crossway, 2016), p. 139

 None Like Him - Jen Wilkin on Ten of Those