Freeing tangled hearts
Dolores Kimball
EP Books
160 pages, £7.99, ISBN: 978-0-85234-910-6
Star Rating : 4
If you often feel controlled by the confusion caused by the interplay of emotions, hormone cycles and frequent unhelpful thinking (which most women recognise), this book will begin to direct your thinking along more biblical lines. It is addressed to women, although many of the issues discussed are for men as much as women.
It is not a step-by-step guide to improving your Christian life, neither does it offer slick answers such as ‘You can do it’, ‘Just trust more’, ‘Commit yourself’ or ‘Just speak words of truth into your life’. Rather than setting out what we can do to sort out ourselves, it is all about what God has already done.
There are helpful chapters on the need for self-examination, God’s love and commitment to his children, the nature of Christian warfare, the effects of women’s emotions, and the conflicts for Christian women raised by modern thinking.
These are followed by chapters on such issues as fear, doubt, guilt, anger, bitterness and envy. The writer allows no excuses on the ground of temperament or personality. Sin is shown to be sin.
Towards the end, there is a chapter explaining a piece of advice from Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, which was to ‘refuse to think about yourself’. The reader is reminded of Paul’s call to us to have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5).
There is straight talking here, and it is made clear that the way out of the tangled mess we sometimes get into is to look away from ourselves to the Lord, to obsess less about ourselves and more about him. This message is clear throughout the book.
The chapter on envy particularly relates to women. The ways that women envy each other at different stages of their lives is outlined. Most women will see something of themselves here.
The book ends by asking the reader to focus on our magnificent God and his sovereignty. Here we are encouraged to see that a high view of God is the ultimate solution to every complexity of life.
If you are seeking to help someone work through their unbiblical thinking, or if you are struggling with your own ungodly attitudes, then this will redirect thinking and attitudes.
Gladys Nash
Greens Norton
