Book Review: Do It Afraid by Joyce Meyer

If I’m being perfectly honest, this has been one of the most challenging book reviews that I have ever written. I struggled with this book, a lot, and my personal opinions are not the most flattering, which makes this review very difficult for me to publish, but I also know that putting it off won’t make it any easier. I realize that I’m just a little (tiny) fish in a very big pond, but I still desire to be a cheerleader for everyone putting themselves out there and encouraging others in their journey. So, I want to be clear and pause for a second to say, just because something is not necessarily my cup of tea does not mean that it isn’t perfectly fitted to what someone else needs in their journey. Please take my opinions with a grain of salt. If I wasn’t honest, then there would be no point in writing a review, but even in my honesty, I encourage you to try the book out for yourself because as I think you’ll see, God still used it in a powerful way in my life…

Let’s get the not-so-flattering out of the way:

The main source of my struggles with this book was Joyce’s writing style. She has written over a hundred books (as she mentioned often in this book) and it kind of feels like somewhere in there the passion was lost or traded in for just churning out the next chapter. The overall message of this book is so powerful and beautiful, but I couldn’t feel any emotions rolling off of her writing and it just didn’t capture me as raw and heartfelt. She pitched several of her other books throughout the text and it often left me feeling like I was being spun through a machine on the marketing cycle rather than being touched on a deeper heartfelt level.

Then there are things that I just don’t agree with in the book. And that’s okay. It’s okay as Christians for us to say that we disagree with each other. One such line that really hit me sideways was this one, “We don’t qualify for a miracle until our problem is so big that only God can fix it.” I’ve had many miracles in my life. Some from small problems. Others from big ones. And God has shown me through it all that He cares greatly for the little and the big. I don’t have to somehow have a problem that is “so big” in order for it to “qualify.” He meets me in the little too, more often, in fact. Perhaps I misunderstood her meaning.

All that said, I would like to share with you something that I wrote midway through reading her book, Do It Afraid; Something that demonstrates how even though I struggled with her writing style, God still used her message to move me in some powerful ways…

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I’m currently reading the book “Do It Afraid” (by Joyce Meyer) and I have to be honest… I really found myself struggling with it. Her writing is very scripture-based and somewhat direct and dry and, in the past, I have usually gravitated towards books that are heavy on the emotion and touchy-feely (think tears pouring down my face as I turned the pages).

That said, as I journeyed through the first few chapters of her book, I simply could not shake the feeling that there was a reason why I was there. Further reinforcing this feeling, every time I thought about picking up another book on my nightstand, God would nudge me to keep the course. So I continued on… and oh the blessings that were in store!

About halfway through the book, I suddenly felt God begin to loop me back to the same message over and over…

“We can pray to be delivered from fear, but often, instead of removing the feeling of fear, God gives us the courage to confront the fear and move forward.” (excerpt from chapter 6)

And the truth is… I began to realize that He was revealing something in me that I wasn’t even aware was there. Something that has been holding me back in my own personal journey. Something that has kept my healing painfully frozen in place. With my family. With my calling. With my own joy. And here it is…

I have been praying and waiting for the fear to go away before I take the next step with Him. Before I let go of the past. Before I let the walls down around my heart. Before I break free and dance with unrestrained and authentic joy…

And as I have been continuously praying for the fear to subside, I have allowed myself to stay frozen in place until He answers my prayers.

But here’s the plot twist that Joyce so beautifully explains… While I have remained frozen, waiting for Him to take away the fear (of all the things), He has been calling me… to do it afraid.

But then…

What if the bottom falls out again, God?

What if my vulnerability becomes my undoing?

To be honest, sometimes I’m really not sure if my fears are genuine extensions of my heart or the enemy whispering thoughts in my ear, but either way, in one split second, they seem to have the power to move me from a moment of courage to a feeling of being completely frozen, overwhelmed, defeated and tired.

If these words sit heavy with you because you relate to them somewhere deep inside, I feel you completely.

This same familiar spot. Again. This same painful cycle. Again.

But here’s the thing… I have had this beautiful prayer in my heart lately that so closely relates to what I’m learning today because my spirit is ready, eager, and hungry for the next step. I don’t want to stay stuck anywhere. I don’t want to be frozen in this part of my healing. I want to move into the next phase of His calling on my heart and on my life. I want to fully jump into the joy that He has so beautifully promised me.

And His answer was revealed so incredibly and flawlessly through Joyce’s words…

Maybe… just maybe… I have been putting my focus in the wrong place. Maybe the fear won’t ever fully disappear, but He will help me rise above. Maybe we should pray for the courage and strength to do it … even when we feel afraid. Maybe we are called to become more than conquerors. Maybe I should stop waiting (after all, His answer for me is already there) and instead, I should start stepping.

Just food for thought today, my friends.

Growing and learning with you every day!

Blessings!

xo Shannon

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Below are some of my favorite quotes from the book… enjoy!

“He was so confident in God’s love that it became his identity.”

“The Christian life is meant to be a flowing river, not a stagnant pond. Every good thing God gives us should flow through us to others.”

“Feelings of fear may never completely go away, but if we regularly seek God for courage, we will always be strong enough to do whatever we need to do. We will just do it afraid! Courage confronts the fear and moves beyond it.”

“Don’t just pray for fear to go away. Instead pray for God to fill you with boldness, courage, and confidence.”

“It is not only possible for us to do great things, but it is also possible to do hard things.”

“All too often when we are faced with a challenge or an opportunity to do something we have never done before, we ask ourselves if we think we can do it. But that is entirely the wrong question. What we should ask is, ‘God, can you do it?’ God is not asking us to do things; He is asking us to let Him do things through us.”

“Start seeing yourself as strong instead of weak and fearful, insecure, and timid. see yourself as someone who is loved unconditionally, valued and precious in God’s sight. What you believe about yourself is very important. No matter how much God has done for us, if we don’t believe it, we will never claim it as our own.”

“Courage is fear that has said it prayers and gone forward to do what it was asked to do.”

“There is no pace that you have ever been that God was not there and no place you will ever be that He will not be there also.”

“If we look at fear as running away from something, I think we can see that God wasn’t telling Joshua not to feel fear. Instead, He was warning him that he would feel fear, and that when he did he was not to flee because He (God) would be with him.”