Think Again


I, like many others, deal with the burden of unhealthy introspection in my life. Think Again: Relief From The Burden Of Introspection by Jared Mellinger seemed like it would be a great help. The back cover says:

"Evaluating yourself — being mindful of who you are and what you are doing — is necessary and can lead to positive change. But what about the dark side of introspection? Do you ever feel weighed down and exhausted by your own self-analysis? Perhaps you made a mistake, said a careless word, or even messed up big time. Your self-examination spirals into a full-blown cross-examination. You keep revisiting what happened. Your mind circles around the event, fruitlessly trying to somehow make the outcome different so you don’t feel the embarrassment, shame, and regret. The modern self-esteem movement has left us empty and self-focused. We exhaust our healthy introspection and pervert it into constant self-evaluation, wrong views of ourselves, self-accusation, and false guilt. Introspection was never meant to bear such weight. Think Again offers real relief from the burden of introspection that so many of us carry each day. Pastor Jared Mellinger, who tends to overdose on self-analysis himself, shows us how the hope of the gospel can rescue us from the bad fruit of unsound introspection. Mellinger’s short, story-filled chapters help readers identify and turn away from unhealthy introspection. There is an outward-focused God who delights to rescue an inward-focused people and lead them into a better way to live. When we truly understand it, we’ll see that the gospel actually sets us free from thinking about ourselves too much.We can seek after and pray for the peace and joy—the sanity—that comes from thinking about ourselves less often. Think Again includes practical instructions for self-examination, fighting false guilt, breaking free from hyper-introspection, and more. Ultimately, Think Again demonstrates that the solution to thinking too much about ourselves is to look to Christ, and it gives readers the tools to begin to turn from the mirror."

I loved that this book was broken up into short chapters that started off with a funny or honest story and then an exposition and application. It was easy to pick up and read one chapter in about 5 or 10 minutes and break the book down into bite size chunks. I have always dealt with the tendency to beat myself up over past mistakes, go over and over things I've done and said in the past, etc. I was very refreshed by this look at freedom from this burden. Jared's main thesis in this book is that we should spend more time looking at Christ and less time looking at ourselves. The true key to breaking free from unhealthy introspection is to focus on Christ so much that it drowns out our petty obsession and focus on self. I highly recommend this book to any Christian dealing with this issue.

I received a copy of this book from Litfuse in order to provide an honest and unbiased review. All opinions are my own.

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