Book Recommendation: Enemies of the Heart.
Reading Enemies of the Heart: Breaking Free from the Four Emotions That Control You, by Andy Stanley, is like sitting down and having a candid conversation with a long-time friend who knows all your secrets and is willing to tell you the truth. His conversational, self-effacing style of writing breaks down your defenses, while his keen insight into human nature and deep knowledge of the Bible provide answers to most of your questions before you even ask them.
Stanley’s premise is that most of us spend too much time worrying about how to change our behavior, while investing too little effort into changing the source of that behavior – our heart. When we find ourselves saying or doing something contrary to our beliefs, we might ask “Where did that come from? That’s not like me.” The answer, Stanley says, is that it’s exactly like you – the you that you usually keep bottled up inside. It comes from your heart.
Four emotions form the “heart” of his diagnosis, and surprisingly, they are all about debt. Guilt is the heart crying out “I owe you.” Anger is the heart accusing “You owe me.” Greed, which is endemic in our Western culture, says pompously “I owe me.” And finally, jealousy shakes its fist at the heavens and says “God owes me.”
In our sex-soaked culture I expected lust to be among the four key emotions. Anticipating this, Stanley explains that lust, at least lust for someone other than our spouse, is actually a manifestation of one of the other four problems. “Simply put, guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy weaken our resolve against sexual temptation.”
Of course, diagnosis is only half of a cure. Stanley goes on to describe spiritual habits he calls “Habits of happiness,” that each of us can develop that serve to disarm the power and begin the life-long process of healing our wayward hearts.
Andy Stanley is fast becoming one of my favorite authors when it comes to practical, Christian living. This book is remarkably practical, and easily accessible, while being spot-on theologically. I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever wondered why they do the things they do – and how to break those habits that control us.
The publisher, Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group, provided me with a complimentary copy of this book. Learn more about the book at Christianbook.com by clicking HERE.
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