Play With Fire: Book Review

“Where is God?”

“Does He care?”

“Does He even see me?”

In all of our lives, sooner or later, we begin to smell smoke. Illness, broken relationships, imploded dreams, or disappointments in our careers threaten to burn our lives down. Sometimes, they do. We find ourselves at ground zero, with life going exactly the opposite from what we expected, and we wonder:

“Is God even paying attention?”

In her new book, Play With Fire, Bianca Olthoff takes us through her own journey of questioning God’s presence, His goodness, and His plan for her life in the midst of the fire. With the heart and gifting of a true story teller, in her every day, Bianca works with the A21 Campaign to end sex trafficking around the world. Yet in this book, it is her own story that is on display.

With grace, humor, and honesty, Bianca takes the reader through a childhood marked by poverty and a deep struggle with self worth. However through the sharing of all these trials she also reveals a God who was very present. From groceries showing up on the doorstep the very day her mom told her and her siblings to pray for food, to experiencing God meet her in her inability to read as an eleven year old, one can see where the foundation of her faith was forged.

Only, like so many of us whose faith journey begins before adolescence, Bianca found herself striving in college—not to live the life God had for her—but one of her own choosing. Seeking to find her worth in her grades, her weight, her clothes, and her boyfriend, Bianca’s story is not a new one. But, it is what happened after college that both changed her world, and could change ours as well.

Bianca’s life (to use her own metaphor) went up in flames. After college, she found herself moving home to take care of her mother who was dying of cancer. Her relationship with her boyfriend ended, and her best friend (her twin sister) got married and moved away. Her own life felt stalled.

Returning to the Provider from her childhood, Bianca began to seek God in a way she hadn’t in a long time. In this book, she takes us through the journey of searching for God when He seems the most absent, and when everything seems to be going wrong. She shares that:

“In the midst of fire, we have a wondrous opportunity to discover a deity who is not far away, but close, not silent, but speaking; not incapable, but incredible.”

When I read Play With Fire, this past summer, my life was not on fire. Rather, it had been a few years since the flames burnt up a sizable piece of my world. After all this time, I was still standing on the scorched ground wondering if new life would ever take root again. Yet as I read through her book, Bianca reminded me of a completely different fire—the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Bianca’s book challenges the reader in hard times, to hold on “…till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest (Isaiah 32:15).” Like a friend telling us exactly what we need to hear, at just the right time, Bianca’s story and her use of scripture reminded me of God’s infinite power. When all we see and feel seems like death and destruction, God sees where He is going to bring new life, and in abundance.

Play With Fire felt like water in the desert to my soul. It helped me remember that though I may not be able to see God working in some of the most painful or scorched areas of my life, it doesn’t mean He isn’t. Though things aren’t happening my way or according to my timeline, it doesn’t mean God isn’t working out those very things—in His way, and in His time.

If you have found yourself in the fire, you’re in the fire right now, or you are wondering where God is, I highly recommend picking up this book.