The Wolves of Midwinter

Sunday, September 27, 2009


Max Lucado's Fearless


Sypnosis:
Each sunrise seems to bring fresh reasons for fear.
They're talking layoffs at work, slowdowns in the economy, flare-ups in the Middle East, turnovers at headquarters, downturns in the housing market, upswings in global warming. The plague of our day, terrorism, begins with the word terror. Fear, it seems, has taken up a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversized and rude, fear herds us into a prison of unlocked doors. Wouldn't it be great to walk out? Imagine your life, wholly untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, or doubt, what would remain? Envision a day, just one day, where you could trust more and fear less. Can you imagine your life without fear?

Review:

By nature, this review's will differ from some of my past reviews. Mostly cause this books of the nonfiction variety, specificially because it's related to one's Christian walk. Before this, I've never touched any of Max Lucado's books. Though I've heard many good things about the authenticity of his writing and the humility that eeks within the passages he writes. Course, I wouldn't expect anyone to herald a Christian writer whose pompous and writes from an elevated stance. Anyone reading that sort of book would feel condemned by that sort of writing and it would definitely not come across as something spiritually empowering. Instead it would be spiritually debilitating.

"Fearless" overall was a very inspirational and empowering read. Being someone whose mind's pervaded with fear of all kinds, I find many of the individual chapter topics to be very relevant to the host of fears within my own mind. And each chapter contained phrases which were well worded and very easy to relate with. Max Lucado writes on the same plane of experience as all of us. He admits his spiritual flaws whilst offering scriptural text and his own insights to help remedy that flaw of ours.

A tendency for many Christian writers is to write "feel good," Christian messages, similar to Joel Osteen. Who seems to believe within the philosophy that God pampers our soul and offers us bliss within our lives. If we promise to ascribe to all his commandments and laws. Max Lucado impressed me by writing that we are to accept the challenges that are about us and to have trust in God that we'd realize the good which can be reaped through these experiences. Our fear should not be seen as a hamper, but as something which can greatly fortify our faith by magnifying our fears. And seeing the lies which are contained within our fear.

From this book, I felt that fear shall always exist in our lives just as with doubt. They mutually coexist within our lives to hinder our progress. Max Lucado's words provide us with spiritual aid to penetrate the barrier that fear and doubt creates. He tells everything openly and never bowdlerizes any element of the Bible in order to pacify the reader. Because genuine truth provides the essential aid in our lives. Instead of doctoring up the Bible's words to produce it into a trite Self Help Guide. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to all my fellow anxiety sufferers and deep thinking Christians. This writer truly knows how to empower us within the right technique.