Like many churches and non-profits around the United States, our church has recently been affected by our nation’s economic downturn.  If Christ-followers understood and practiced tithing, churches wouldn’t be short on funds and we’d be able solve many of the world’s poverty related issues.  I believe and practice tithing.  As a church staff, we’re trying to help our church members take that step of faith.  When I saw this book on Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze site, I thought it might be a great resource for teaching our members more about stewardship.  Although I was not thrilled with all of the interviews and stories, I liked the concept.  I would liked to have seen more discussion relating directly to the scriptural basis for tithing leading into or as a follow up to the testimonies.  Unfortunately, this book is not the resource that I’d hoped it would be.  It isn’t a bad book.  It is not what I was looking for or needed.

*** This book was review for Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze.  This book was supplied to me for free through this program in exchange for a review of the book.  My review was not influenced by Thomas Nelson or the fact that the book was provided for free. ***

At first this book felt like a Dr. Seuss wanna-be.  As I was reading this book to my son, I found myself tripping over phrases that didn’t feel well worded.  My son, who is two and a half, on the other hand has been hooked since the first read.  I think he’s made me or my husband read it at least five times in the last two days.  He loves it!  The more I read it, the more I like the book and the artwork is beautiful.

This is the first that I’d heard of Andy Andrews.  I’ve not read his previous book, The Traveler’s Gift.  To be up front, I’m not a big fan of fiction.  I’m much more of a non-fiction reader, but I thought I’d give this book a chance based on all the good reviews I’d read about it.  Andy has a very simple, story-telling writing style.  He carefully wraps timeless truths about life into the stories of the people in this little town.

If you enjoy fiction, I’d definitely recommend this book.  If you’re looking for a great example of brilliant storytelling, read this book.  If you’re not a big fan of fiction, well, there are plenty of other books to spend your time on.

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***  This book was reviewed for the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers Program ***

For some of my favorite quotes from the book…  Keep reading!

• “Think with me here . . . everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you’ll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what’s a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination—our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life’s next peak.

• “I say to you that, as you lay your head down tonight, you are sleeping on fertile ground. Think. Learn. Pray. Plan. Dream. For soon . . . you will become.”

• Experience is not the best teacher. Other people’s experience is the best teacher.

• “Your vision, my boy. It is incredibly cloudy at the moment, but I am certain we can clear a pathway from your head to your heart and into your future.”

• “Whatever you focus upon, increases.”

• “But a grateful perspective brings happiness and abundance into a person’s life.”

• ‘What is it about me that other people would change if they could?’”

• “But a true friend holds you to a higher standard. A true friend brings out the best in you.”

• “Worry . . . fear . . . is just a misuse of the creative imagination that has been placed in each of us.”

• “So those are the two things you need to know: one, that you think the way you do because you’re smart; and two, you have to defeat those thoughts with logic.”

• “A person consumed by worry can focus. Isn’t it obvious? Worry is focus! But it is focus on the wrong things.

• “Wisdom is the ability to see, into the future, the consequences of your choices in the present. That ability can give you a completely different perspective on what the future might look like.”

• “If you are breathing, you are still alive. If you are alive, then you are still here, physically, on this planet . If you are still here, then you have not completed what you were put on earth to do. If you have not completed what you were put on earth to do . . . that means your very purpose has not yet been fulfilled.”

• “If your purpose has not yet been fulfilled, then the most important part of your life has not yet been lived. And if the most important part of your life has not yet been lived . . .” Jones paused, waiting for Willow to follow his thought to conclusion. “That is my proof of hope,” Willow said softly.”

• “You’d be wise to sweat the small stuff. Little things do matter.”

• “Yet intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.”

Marcus Buckingham uses his famous teaching on strengths to encourage women that there is a better way to live.  Through the stories of Anna and Charlie, one who is living in her strengths and one who journeys from living in the “shoulds” to discovering her strengths, Marcus encourages women to stop trying to have it all and learn to really enjoy those activities that make them feel strong.  Give up juggling and balance for cradling and imbalance.

I have learned so much about myself in reading Marcus’ books.  The great thing about Find Your Strongest Life is that it is a great follow up to his other books, but it is also a great stand alone book that you can pick up and understand the concepts without needing all the background from his previous books.  Highly recommended for not just women but anyone looking to give more detail to their passion, strengths, and life.

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*** This book was reviewed for the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program.

Want more details?  Keep reading!

What does “having it all” really mean?  For so long, some women have thought that it means “having everything, all at once, all the time.”  What if we redefined it to mean taking yourself seriously, knowing yourself, and finding purpose in life?  The secret to this is living in your strengths.  The secret is not in figuring out how to juggle everything but in “knowing how to draw a few things in towards you.”  What we need is to learn to be discriminating, selective, and intentional in every area of our lives.

In Find Your Strongest Life, Marcus gives research to show that women today are not as happy as they were 40 years ago.  Women also find themselves less happy as they age.  Why?  It seems to be rooted in that too many choices can paralyze us.  Women have in fact become less happy, more anxious, and more stressed despite having greater opportunity, greater achievement, greater influence, and more money.

So what does a strong woman look like?  She’s successful, which means effective and capable.  Having no outlet for your strengths leads to losing your sense of self.  Being strong means: positively anticipating the future, learning and growing with a sense of focus and concentration, and feeling that you are filled up and your needs are met.

To show what a strong woman looks like and show how you can become a strong woman, Marcus tells the stories of two women, Anna and Charlie.  Anna knows who she is, what her strengths are, and is using her strengths.  Charlie is stuck in a job she doesn’t like and is letting “shoulds” overtake her life.  Strength is really in “your emotional reaction to specific moments in your life”.  Strong moments are those times when you experience strong, positive, authentic, emotional reactions.  Anna took these moments and her reactions seriously and used them to guide her choices in life.  Charlie didn’t and she found that you begin to feel empty when you take on activities and responsibilities because you feel like you should.  This is not about positive thinking.  It is about targeted optimism.  This is not about achieving balance, but intentionally striving for imbalance.  Balance is actually impossible to attain and is really unfulfilling.  It is about cradling, not juggling.  Cradling involves concentrating on something, accepting it, and nurturing it.  Allow these strong moments to determine what your priorities should be.

Marcus has developed test that you can take at www.stronglifetest.com.  The questions are designed to determine which of nine roles are your lead role and your supporting role.  These roles are more emotional that the strengths types that he teaches in his previous books.  These roles are what cause us to feel love, joy, fear, and pain.  They explain why we are patient in some areas and impatient in others as well as why we’re drawn to some persons and repelled by others.  Finally, they give shape to our dreams and desires.  Marcus says, “Always sweat the small stuff.  The details matter”.  These nine roles are: Advisor, Caretaker, Creator, Equalizer, Influencer, Motivator, Pioneer, Teacher, and Weaver.

I found that my leading role is “Advisor” and my support role is “Equalizer”.  An advisor is one who loves helping people make better decisions.  They ask lots of questions.  They love the details.  This is fed by my strengths traits of learner, achiever, input, and context.  An equalizer is one who wants to know the right thing to do.  They love deadlines and highly defined rules.  They strive to keep everything aligned and hold everyone together.  This role is fed by my strength traits of context and harmony as well as my personality type C (on the DISC profile) which makes me a rule following perfectionist.

Once you know what your roles are, you need to accept who you are and allow that to cure you of the problem of excess choice.  You need to trust that you are the best judge of your strengths.  Others may be able to better judge your performance, but only you can determine your strengths and weaknesses.  Using your strengths and roles requires boldness and gentleness with yourself.  You have to be deliberate and create strong moments in your life.  When you have strong moments, celebrate them and talk about them with others.  In the end, focusing on these strengths with give “exponential return”.  Following these cues leads to passion.  Passion is not really found.  It’s built.  And it needs detail.  “Passion is useless without precision.”

Marcus uses the last several chapters of the book to give advice for specific types of situations in a Q&A format.  There are some great questions and great advice found here on topics ranging from career to family, raising kids to communicating with your spouse.

This quote from the last page of the book really sums everything up so well: “The secret to success and happiness lies in your ability to know yourself well enough to make strong choices without regret, no matter what life bestows on you, or throws at you.”

Another must read Marcus Buckingham book.  A great place to start your journey in discovering your strengths and also a great next step for those women, or men, who have already started the discovery process.  Another great feature of this book is the online content which includes leader and participant guides for group study.  Check it out at http://marcusbuckingham.com/stronglife.

Who hasn’t found themselves fearful in our current economy and state of world affairs?  These things should push us towards faith rather than fear.  Max Lucado’s new book Fearless is a great reminder of the damage that fear can do to us and what we should do when we face fear.

To be honest, I’ve not been a fan of Max Lucado’s writing in the past.  His books have tended to be a little too “fluffy” and simplistic, in my opinion.  It was Michael Hyatt’s review of this book on his blog that drew me to this book.  Something made me think that this book would be different…  Something in me hoped that this book would be different.

I’m so glad I gave this book a chance!  It was a wonderful, scripture-supported, example-filled book of hope and faith.  Max has also given a well-written study guide at the end of the book making it a great book for use in a small group study.

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*** I have reviewed this book as a part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program.

If you’re interested in more details, keep reading for some of my favorite quotes and passages along with some thoughts and reactions of mine.  My thoughts are in italics.

• He used the word (seismos) on only two other occasions: once at Jesus’ death when Calvary shook (Matt. 27:51–54) and again at Jesus’ resurrection when the graveyard tremored (28:2). Apparently, the stilled storm shares equal billing in the trilogy of Jesus’ great shake-ups: defeating sin on the cross, death at the tomb, and here silencing fear on the sea.
• This story sends the not-so-subtle and not-too-popular reminder: getting on board with Christ can mean getting soaked with Christ.
• Christ-followers contract malaria, bury children, and battle addictions, and, as a result, face fears. It’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It’s whom we discover in the storm: an unstirred Christ.
• Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness.
• Fear unleashes a swarm of doubts, anger-stirring doubts.
• It (fear) also deadens our recall.
• It (fear) makes us forget what Jesus has done and how good God is.
• His most common command emerges from the “fear not” genre.  21 times Jesus urges us to “not be afraid” or “not fear” or “have courage” or “take heart” or “be of good cheer.” …  The one statement he made more than any other was this: don’t be afraid.
• Fear itself is not a sin. But it can lead to sin.
• Fear may fill our world, but it doesn’t have to fill our hearts.
• We fear coming and going and no one knowing. … Fear of insignificance creates the result it dreads, arrives at the destination it tries to avoid, facilitates the scenario it disdains.
• Memories of dropped passes fade slowly. They stir a lonely fear, a fear that we have disappointed people, that we have let down the team, that we’ve come up short. A fear that, when needed, we didn’t do our part, that others suffered from our fumbles and bumbles.
• Fear, mismanaged, leads to sin. Sin leads to hiding. Since we’ve all sinned, we all hide, not in bushes, but in eighty-hour workweeks, temper tantrums, and religious busyness. We avoid contact with God.
• Yes, we have disappointed God. But, no, God has not abandoned us.
• Jesus doesn’t condemn legitimate concern for responsibilities but rather the continuous mind-set that dismisses God’s presence.
• Destructive anxiety subtracts God from the future, faces uncertainties with no faith, tallies up the challenges of the day without entering God into the equation.
• P-E-A-C-E-F-U-L | Pray, first. Easy, now.  Act on it.  Compile a worry list.  Evaluate your worry categories.  Focus on today.  Unleash a worry army.  Let God be enough.
• Our kids were his kids first.
• We never expect to see him in a storm. But it is in storms that he does his finest work, for it is in storms that he has our keenest attention.
• His call to courage is not a call to naïveté or ignorance. We aren’t to be oblivious to the overwhelming challenges that life brings. We’re to counterbalance them with long looks at God’s accomplishments.
• How many people spend life on the edge of the pool? Consulting caution. Ignoring faith. Never taking the plunge. Happy to experience life vicariously through others. Preferring to take no risk rather than any risk. For fear of the worst, they never enjoy life at its best.
• A healthy church is where our fears go to die.
• Contrary to what we’d hope, good people aren’t exempt from violence.
• Fear has never been famous for its logic.
• Everything Jesus did for his followers, his Spirit does for you.
• God never sends you out alone.
• … when everything else changes, God’s presence never does.
• (Speaking of change…) Embrace it. Accept it. Don’t resist it. Change is not only a part of life; change is a necessary part of God’s strategy. To use us to change the world, he alters our assignments.  –I’m not a big fan of change, especially change that I don’t have control over…  this really gave me a different perspective on change and God’s will.
• Questions can make hermits out of us, driving us into hiding. Yet the cave has no answers. Christ distributes courage through community; he dissipates doubts through fellowship. He never deposits all knowledge in one person but distributes pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to many. When you interlock your understanding with mine, and we share our discoveries . . . When we mix, mingle, confess, and pray, Christ speaks.  –Reminds me that we are all a part of the body and each have roles to play that cannot be carried out apart from the whole.
• Could it be this simple? Could the chasm between doubt and faith be spanned with Scripture and fellowship?
• Trust in ultimate victory gives ultimate courage.
• Make sure the hull of your convictions can withstand the stress of collisions.
• There’s a stampede of fear out there. Let’s not get caught in it. Let’s be among those who stay calm. Let’s recognize danger but not be overwhelmed. Acknowledge threats but refuse to be defined by them.