Skip to content ↓

Book Review – Out of Control

Book Reviews Collection cover image

“When was the last time you felt rested and peaceful in this fast-paced, go-to-go culture? It’s a world of instant message, speed dialing, and express lanes that often create a sense of mania and fragmentation. Has your life become like a 24-hour convenience store that is up and running 365 days a year?”

We all feel like that at times, don’t we? Our society values few things higher than action. We are to be busy all the time and to spend our lives in the frantic pursuit of more: more money, more affluence, more power. We are, it’s safe to say, out of control.

Ben Young and Samuel Adams think that we need to just stop for a while and find peace. We need to stop being victims of a frantically-paced society. We need to learn to use and master technology rather than allowing it to rule and complicate our lives. We need to rediscover spiritual disciplines and seek a life of peace and simplicity.

Does this sound familiar? It may well sound familiar as there have been multitudes of books pouring from the presses of Christian publishers suggesting this same remedy. It seems that Christians are either not understanding or responding to this message. After all, today’s Christians seem to be every bit as busy and frantic as those who do not profess Christ.

In Out of Control: Finding Peace for the Physically Exhausted and Spiritually Strung Out, Young and Adams, having first proven the danger of living this type of frantic existence, prescribe a three-part remedy. It all starts with Sabbath. Sabbath, they teach, requires us to take one day out of seven where we move at God’s pace rather than our own. “We want you to experience this rest because we are convinced it is foundational to all the other ways God wants to bring peace and sanity to your life.” While they argue primarily from the benefits of Sabbath rather than the biblical foundation, they build quite a convicting case for the blessing and necessity of celebrating the Sabbath. The second part of the solution is to rediscover the practice of silence and solitude. As we might expect, they draw much of this chapter (and the next) from the writings of Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster and Mother Teresa (who, unfortunately, appears repeatedly throughout the book). While I advocate the importance of silence and solitude, this chapter was weakened by leaning on the teachings of undiscerning and unbiblical men and women. The third solution is to practice the presence. Needless to say, this chapter draws liberally upon Brother Lawrence and his book Practicing the Presence of God. The authors describe the importance of prayer and encourage readers to begin to practice different forms, among them the prayer of release, which involves visualization, and “palms up/palms down” prayer, which allows the body to symbolize releasing cares to God and receiving patience, love and joy from Him. This type of prayer is absent from Scripture, but present in eastern and New Age religions.

The final section of the book, easily the strongest section, suggests “three movements for lifestyle change.” Young and Adams encourage readers to move their priorities, to move away from technology and to move into community.

Out of Control is one of an ever-increasing number of books dealing with the importance of cultivating spiritual disciplines. While there is much within this book that is valuable, too much of the heart of the book is drawn from poor, unbiblical, undiscerning teachers. The first and third sections of this book are quite good. Alas, the middle was very disappointing. With the great variety of books available dealing with this topic, there is little reason to bother with this one. Turn instead to Don Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life and learn from godly, biblical teachers.


  • What God Wants You To Forget

    What God Wants You To Forget

    We are never far from reminding God of our credentials, of providing him with a curriculum vitae that lays out all we are, all we have been through, and all we have accomplished for his sake. We are never far from making the subtle turn from grace to merit, from what is freely given to…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 27)

    A La Carte: New music / Millennials and GenZ / Scotland’s new hate crime law / Cate Blanchett, Easter is for you / Why the Reformed pray for revival / What truly happened to Jesus on the cross? / and more.

  • New and Notable Books

    New and Notable Christian Books for March 2024

    As you know, I like to do my best to sort through the new Christian books that are released each month to see what stands out as being not only new, but also particularly notable. I received quite a number of new titles in March and narrowed the list down to the ones below. I…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 26)

    A La Carte: God delivers from the suffering he ordains / The beautiful partnership of family and church / The end of religious liberty / On whales, menopause, and thanks to God / Ordinary women, extravagant gifts / and more.

  • Marriage: A Dance of Beauty and Chaos

    This sponsored post was provided by Burke Care, and written by Jen Arend, which invites you to schedule care today with a certified biblical counselor. As the music swells, she begins her descent down the aisle. All eyes are on her, especially her groom. She is radiant, majestic, and filled with beauty. Her gaze meets his tear-filled…

  • Does God Care How You Cook Your Goat?

    Does God Care How You Cook Your Goat?

    It is one of those biblical commands that has always perplexed me. If it appeared just one time in Scripture I might be tempted to pass it by. But it appears no less than three times, in Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21. The repetition tells me that God is quite concerned that his…