Fearless

In a world of doubts and uncertainties, Max Lucado’s book Fearless draws on the Bible to offer Christians support – and more importantly, freedom from their fears. I requested this book from Thomas Nelson as part of the Book Review Bloggers program.

Fearless focuses on the Bible’s message of trusting in God, relying on the promises in Scripture and dealing with problems through prayer rather than trying to do too much oneself. But it never comes off as simply a collection of Bible verses – or, for that matter, a sermon. Instead its message is conveyed in a storytelling style, and a good example of this is the chapter on Worry. That word is capitalized because that’s how it appears in the text – and in the brief stories of people with different reasons to worry about what’s happening to them.

Worry sits on the back row of the English as a Second Language class. He’d prefer the front row, but by the time he caught the city bus and endured the evening traffic, the best seats were taken. His hands still smell of diner dishwater where Worry worked since six this morning. Within twelve hours he’ll be at the sink again, but for now he does his best to make sense of verbs, adverbs, nouns. Everyone else seems to get it. He doesn’t.

That’s memorable. It makes the book an easy as well as a compelling read.

Fearless is divided into chapters based on different kinds of fears – concerns for children’s safety, the fear of death, of poverty and so on. There’s also an extensive discussion guide. On the other hand, it’s definitely a book by a Christian for Christians, and I was personally turned off by the depiction of atheists as discontented people without real hope or joy.

For what it is, though, Fearless works, and I think this book’s target readership will be benefited by it.