I will be honest, when I read the title, I wasn’t too sure about this book. I never really feel uninvited. But when I read the subtitle, and the back of the book, I felt inclined to get it.
I bought the book during our last PCS (that is when the military makes you move from one place to another with the intention you will be there longer than 6 months). So it was during a big transition for us. Not only was this a PCS move, but it was a career transition for my husband. We were moving out of the old lifestyle and (hopefully) into a new one. Instead of moving every 18 months or less (sometimes up to 3x a year), this new opportunity would have us in one place for a long time, maybe up to 10 years.
We made this change for our family and its emotional/physical/spiritual health. And it meant big changes. All of a sudden, all the decisions we would make had lasting effect: the house we chose, the church we joined, the friends we made, the activities we volunteered for, on and on and on. We couldn’t afford to make mistakes. After all, the decisions would be “permanent.” The army wouldn’t be moving us away from any mistakes we made. And although this doesn’t seem like a big deal to many, for us, not having made these types of decisions in over a decade, was slightly daunting (and exhilarating).
So back to the book. Despite all of that change going on, I felt completely normal. This big change was just everyday for us. Another run-of-the-mill change in our lives. However, as I dug into this book, I realized just how lonely and uninvited I did feel in this world. I missed friends and family. I craved a spiritual mentor. And over the years, I had developed good and bad ways of thinking. Those habits needed correction. Godly correction.
This isn’t a book of pity, feeling sorry for yourself. It is an honest look at how you absorb things that happen to you. How do you deal with them? Is the way you think about those things and deal with them what God wants for you? How has your thinking affected your relationship with God?
Did you know that the way you think about the things that happen to you can affect the way you think about God? They absolutely can! And this point is exactly what had happened in all the moving we had been doing.
There was a period where the army was working against my marriage. We won’t go into it, it isn’t the point. Just suffice it to say that it was a very dark time and all the moving left us with no support to help us get through it, much less get through it God’s way. We did get through it, but it was two and a half years of mess. Big mess. And it had lasting effects on the way we viewed God. It took BIG come-to-Jesus moments to get us out of it. Believe me, it was not fun and God’s correction was pretty harsh.
I mention this to say that this book emphasized why we went down a dark spiral. We had allowed the bad circumstances in our lives (which there were a BUNCH at that time) to dictate the way we think about life. And the way we thought about life, ended up dictating how we thought about God. And those thoughts took us further and further from God, until He put His foot down and set us in our place.
My dad would call this “stinkin’ thinkin’.”
And the way you think matters. The way you process bad things matters. In her book, Lysa TerKeurst goes through those bad events in her life and shows how they affected the way she saw things. She then works through how to change your thoughts, showing in the Bible how God truly is. Although I had not gone through the exact things Lysa did, I saw my own thinking in hers. I was able to easily apply her lessons learned to my lessons learned. I was also able to help build a better way of thinking when those bad things do happen again.
I would definitely recommend this book. Lysa focuses on the types of events that make you feel lonely, unwanted, or like you don’t belong. She discusses how these feelings lead to poor thinking about God and who He truly is. If you have ever had these types of feelings, and I’m sure most have at some point in their life, this book is for you. If you are a leader in your church or a mentor of other Christians, I would also recommend this book. It really shows how these types of feelings can really alter a person’s view of God, without them even knowing it. The book will also give you a quick reference guide to scripture to help the person combat those feelings.
All in all, I recommend this book!
Laura participates in the Amazon Associates program which compensates her for sales made through the advertisements on her social media.
