A Review of Smokie Norful’s “Take the Lid Off”
Under Pressure
If you’re wondering about this book’s title, it’s kinda a cooking metaphor. Smokie Norful — who is currently a pastor but had a singing career that brought him numerous awards in the gospel sphere, including a Grammy — takes the title from something he learned as a child. At the time, he was in his grandmother’s kitchen helping to decode the family recipe for sweet rice, but once he got the rice simmering, he threw a lid on the concoction. After a few minutes, the whole thing started bubbling over. Frantic that he was about to start a fire, he asked his grandma what he should do. Her response is, thus, the title.
So how does Take the Lid Off apply to Christian life? Basically, Norful makes the point that our busy, media saturated lives are like that pot of rice in his grandma’s kitchen, and we need to take the lid off to prevent catastrophe by letting God into our lives. There are four elements to taking the lid off, and I’ve pulled this from the publisher’s site:
Look inward, experiencing the cleansing of forgiveness and the power of the Holy Spirit; look outward, seeking for others to experience the joy of living for God and have the best God has to offer; look upward and marvel at God’s love and strength to accomplish his purposes; and move onward, devising a strategy to accomplish all God has put in our hearts to do.
It’s no surprise that virtually all of the books published by Thomas Nelson are for the evangelical community, and this one is no different. That’s not my faith persuasion, if you can call it that, but I do have to admit that once you get past Norful’s evangelical theology, which is essentially largely contained in the “look inward” part of the book, there’s something to be said about his ideas. The guy has wisdom, I’ll grant you that. Perhaps some of it might strike readers as being a little extreme — he made his children give most of their Christmas presents to the poor one year — but there are nuggets of truth if you’re willing to take the time and effort to extract them.
For instance, I’ve been known to have my share of anxiety about being a writer. However, Norful writes that God has put the dream in your heart (for instance, in my case, my desire to be a writer) and you have to act on it. “The dream may need to be shaped, pruned and refined, but it will capture your heart and give you a reason to get up each morning,” writes Norful. “You won’t realize the dream if you simply stand on the sidelines, listening to all the doubters.” That might seem very airy fairy, though Norful elsewhere does comment on the need to have a plan (business or otherwise) when it comes to taking the leap, but, you know, you sometimes need to hear that you need to put your dream into action and have a bit of faith in God to help you realize the dream.
Granted, Norful says that whatever you do should be all about praising God and worshiping Him (though concedes this isn’t possible 100 percent of the time), so you can see where theology matters here. However, despite our differences in church denominations, I never really thought that Norful was trying to convince me that my beliefs are wrong. I got the distinct feeling that he’s playing to the choir with this one — his debut book. I don’t think he expects anyone on the liberal side of things to pick his book up. (I did, but that was because there’s a black guy on the cover, and I wanted to stretch my horizons and read a faith book not written by someone of my colour.)
For that reason, at no point in reading Take the Lid Off did I feel that I was being preached to, or that I was on the “wrong side” of the theological fence. Well, there may be a little bit of “Jesus died on the cross for your sins” talk at the start of the book, and Norful kind of brags about his musical accomplishments in that section (which is a bit of a turn-off), but there wasn’t anything here that had the pit of my stomach really lurching.
I walked away from Take the Lid Off feeling as though Norful knew what he was talking about and he had the Bible quotes to back his wisdom up. It seems that he thinks deeply about things and discernment, and he’s honest — he comes out at various points and, with a sense of humility, tells readers when he was wrong in a particular situation. Aside from the boasting about his musical accomplishments, he doesn’t come across as being particularly vain. I do think Norful might have been a teeny bit harsh with his kids over the Christmas presents issue, even if they got three minivans full of gifts that year. It is one thing for an adult to give most of their possessions away, but taking candy from a kid seems a tad cruel. The good news is that the kids seemed to take things in stride and saw the point in the exercise about generosity.
In any event, Take the Lid Off isn’t too bad of a read. It’s not my theology and not what I believe in, but the book isn’t really offensive and I have to admit that I perversely admire Norful’s chutzpah in his style of writing. There are questions at the end of each chapter to offer personal reflection or group discussion, so, in the end, Norful doesn’t quite have the last word. All in all, Take the Lid Off exposed me to some new ideas — some worth keeping, others worth reflecting on — without making me twitch in discomfort. If that’s the mark of a good evangelical book from a more progressive Christian, then Take the Lid Off is a delectable delicacy.
Smokie Norful’s Take the Lid Off: Trust God, Release the Pressure, and Find the Life He Wants for You was published by Thomas Nelson on September 5, 2017.
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