Book Review – Finding Grace by Seun Yewande Williams

My Journey to Finding Grace – the reason why I wrote Finding grace

When did I have an encounter with Grace you might ask – during my service Year.

I finished school and was excited to be leaving Lagos state for my NYSC deployment.

After graduation, I set for my National service, and since I didn’t hustle to change my state of deployment I was sent to Edo state.

In my quest for prayers to protect me throughout my stay in Edo state, I visited my father-in-the-Lord and bam! I was warned of the grace message.

He warned me to watch out for those people that preached grace, that God was a consuming fire and I would be punished by Him (God) whenever I did wrong.

With that in mind (fortified and ready), I did set out for Edo state.

But you know the irony of having a good Father like our God, just when you think you know all the answers, He starts letting you know “girl, you don’t have it all correct” –and that’s just what happened.

The first friend I made, spoke to me about ‘God’s grace’ and I was like huh? “I reject you in Jesus name!” I can recall how much we argued on a particular day on the subject That I said; “…can’t we agree to disagree on this matter what’s your issue?” …but persistence always wins.

While the first person who talked to me about grace wasn’t the one who got me listening, he certainly sowed the seed; after all, I still believed my bible and when someone keeps on referring to the same bible, I was like “you know what, I will check it up”, and that’s what I did.

It’s funny (and remarkable) how after some searching of the scriptures, pushed by another friend and digesting lots of messages, I came to a realization of how wrong I was and how misleading my spiritual fathers were as regard ‘Grace’.

Although with good intentions, so as to protect me from the luke-warm, sitting-on-the-fence preaching, my ‘fathers’ failed to personally search out this truth from the scriptures before passing judgment or maybe they knew the truth but didn’t think I could handle it.

I realized some truths during this season of my life.

I learned to put God’s word above others. And the more I did this, the more every doctrine I held dear kept crashing down.

I began to understand how those motives are more important to God than action.

I also realized that serving God is the consequence of a relationship with my father and not a result of doctrinal-duty. God isn’t a taskmaster He is a good father!

But why write Finding Grace?

Finding Grace is a novel that helps you understand what grace means it is my story of what grace means and it can be yours also.

When I thought of writing a book on grace (Based on my new knowledge and experience) I started with a blank page what was it going to be all.

But where do I begin? So, I started with a question

Where does the knowledge of grace come from?

You see I have come to realize their three-ways of seeing things

1. One formed out of ignorance — you simply don’t know – the cure is to get knowledge on it.
2. One formed from wrong knowledge. You know but what you know is wrong — you need to remove the wrong belief first before putting in a new one; people call this relearning.
3. One formed from the right information.

Well for Grace, it was a topic of relearning a lot of things for me especially since I thought I knew it. When it comes to spiritual truth a lot of us allow people we look up to, to define what we believe and while this in itself isn’t wrong, what if they are wrong? what if they are not totally right?

I learned that as any subject people can always take it overboard or use their ignorance on the topic to form an opinion that is wrong, most times they do it from a sincere heart but I would rather they said nothing on the topic than give wrong impressions. The only solution to this issue, in reality, is to take God’s word as the final say beyond any man’s word.

We do assume we do. But in our daily lives is this true?

When I started studying what grace was, I must confess I had to turn several times to look at the cover page of my bible to be sure I was reading the Word of God it was so plainly stated there that I couldn’t believe what I had been previously told (of course those verses had been taken out of context).

So, while I am still on the journey to know all about God I must say finding what grace is has helped me and trust me Grace isn’t an exhaustive topic. Grace is Jesus personified, Grace is the way we get things from God. The understanding of Grace is never really a full stop it all commas.

So, to you I say how do you find Grace — Read the Word of God (especially the book of Romans) and ask God for more understanding on it and while you are at it, you can also read my novel on it.

I wrote Finding Grace as a novel because I like to read novels and some of the greatest truth I have encountered came from novels – where I saw myself in the shoes of those characters and those impressions created a lasting memory for me.

I want readers to see themselves in Titi’s story – I want them to feel her pains and understand her life, why she was doing the things she did and also find God grace as she did.

A novel can never be a substitute for the bible but I hope by reading Finding Grace you get closer to God.

To get the first five chapters free click on this link and you will go to a page that gives you the necessary directions to have a copy.

I truly desire that everyone encounter God grace because it has the power to radically change your life forever.