The
Anxious Christian is written to assist readers in dealing with
their anxious instead of hiding it and suppressing it. Rhett Smith begins the
book on a personal note about the tragic events in his childhood that he encountered.
When he was six years old, his mother felt a lump on her breast and it turned
out to be breast cancer. The doctors said, “If she lives more than six more
weeks, it would be a miracle”. She ended up living until Rhett was eleven years
old. She fought long and hard for five years in trying to beat breast cancer.
After she died, Rhett constantly lived with anxiety and panic and he desperately
tried to remain in control. He struggled from compulsive habits and he was convinced
that he had to touch door handles a number of times and count the number of
tiles in a room. He also lost a grandmother and an aunt to breast cancer. He
felt abandoned as a child and he began to withdraw and shut down where he could
cope with his emotions and the pain he endure. He went to the extreme in order
to manage his stress levels and he believed that if he did this no one else
would die in his life. Before his mother died, he had no trouble in reading
aloud in class. But after he lost his mother, he became fearful that when he
was called upon he refused to read and his name was written down on the board
for punishment. He also admitted that he had trouble with stuttering and he
didn’t want others to see him as weak, inadequacy, and not good enough. These feelings
continued to be an enormous deciding factor in his life.
Rhett Smith revealed his fears about public speaking and
his stuttering. He prayed to God for guidance and courage and an opportunity to
speak. God heard his prayers and God initiated and opened doors where he could
move forward. He was tempted to run back and hide but his anxiety became the catalyst
for change. God has used his anxiety to remind Rhett to remain connected and depend
on Christ for strength. We can’t always stay comfortable and play safe and
stuck in life, many times we have to take a risk and move where God is leading
us.
This book has immensely helped me realize and exposed the
fears and anxiety that I struggle with in my own life. Some of my fears and
concerns are: What will I major in college? What state do I want to live in? Will
I ever maintain a long term relationship? Will I get married? Will I have
children? What if I don’t get married and I still want kids? Can I overcome the
odds and adopt as a single man? What if I’m not a virtuous husband and father? What
if we can’t conceive a child? What if I lose my wife or we lose a child? What
if my wife cheats on me and becomes pregnant by another man? Will our marriage
make it through the storms of life? What if I compromise on my morals and core
values and I marry the wrong person? What if I fall into temptation and I don’t
continue to save myself for marriage? What if I’m clueless and nervous the
first time together on our wedding night? As, we can all see with my extensive
list this book was written for people like me!
One of my favorite chapters was, “Getting Intentional”.
This chapter taught me a lot about how married couples tend to blame each other
for their own problems instead of working with God to change them and taking responsibility
for their own actions. The chapter main verse was, “Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,
and Love your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10:27). He breaks down the meaning of
heart, soul, strength, mind, and loving yourself where you can love others. This
conveyed to me the area where I have been struggling with the hardest in my many
fears. I haven’t been loving myself the way Christ has intended me to. You can’t
give away love to others if you don’t love yourself completely like Christ does.
I would recommend this magnificent book on handling your anxiety
to anyone who has countless things they worry about and the fear is hindering
them from becoming the man or woman God has designed them to be. This book is prodigious
for teenagers, young college students, and adults and it will help them in
whatever transition they are in. I especially loved how vulnerable Rhett Smith
was in revealing his own personal fears. He feared public speaking, stuttering,
being a good father, what jobs positions to take, and some other fears. This is
a superb resource to help readers during their numerous transitions throughout
their life stages. I wish this book would have been released when I struggled
with sleeping when I first began college. It would have dramatically benefited me
during my biggest anxiety. The book was still a gigantic blessing in my current
fears and worries. It has many practical questions and activities to be
completed at the end of each chapter and it has a very obliging prayer to pray
to our loving Creator. It has personally imparted me with the wisdom to overcome
my what if questions and my several worries and concerns. I must depend on God fully
and completely whenever I struggle with having anxiety. If you’re longing to
get unstuck in your fears and worries, and wanting freedom that is found in
Christ, then this book will vastly benefit you in your journey!
"I received this book free from the
publisher through the Moody Publishers book review bloggers program."
If you would like to
purchase a copy of The
Anxious Christian
check it out on Amazon.com or ChristianBook.com:
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