Review of Wide Awake by Erwin McManus

Erwin McManus' latest book is a return to the style and perspective of his previous offerings, which is issuing the call for Christians to live a joy-filled, purposeful life. He has a very easy style to read, and I found myself finding several great nuggets of truth throughout the book.

Using Scripture and stories, he paints the picture that there are eight attributes that believers must exhibit to live a life wide awake.

• Dream
• Discover
• Adapt
• Expect
• Focus
• Create
• Enjoy
• Invest

I found myself most challenged and encouraged by the sections on "Expect" and "Invest." The idea behind expect is that Christians should look expectantly to the future God calls us to, rather than being mired in our current circumstances. Or stated another way, live a life of faith rather than sight. God views us as who we could be, not who we are. We should strive to live up to God's expectations and avoid the easy path of living in a rut.

A couple of quotes that really grabbed my attention point to the need of moving from comfort to significance.:

"We have confused comfort with peace, belief with faith, safety with wisdom, wealth with blessing, and existence with life. And for many of us, our dreams will be buried under the epitaph, 'I refused to let go of what I had.'" (p. 106)

"A life of expectations sometimes brings great public success, but sometimes God glorifies himself and finds the greatest honor from our lives when we are willing to fail in the eyes of others simply by doing what is right even if it means losing our perceived value to the world. Faith is not measured by success but by faithfulness." (p. 112)

The chapter on invest was interesting because it is about the importance of investing in others. Our greatest impact is found in pouring our lives into others, for it is through others that we can multiply our impact and store up treasures in heaven.

"If you live a life of self-importance, you won't find many people who want to help you when your life starts falling apart. We must make a personal commitment that our goals, ambitions, and dreams will never overtake our value for people." (p. 221)

I would highly recommend this book. The caveat for others would be to understand Erwin is a bit of a "free spirit." For a logical, conventional person like myself, his artistic-bent presses me to think and observe differently. I like this stretching of my perspective, but you may feel uncomfortable at first with this different way of viewing things.