A weekend reading review…because sometimes Pastors need a break from heavy reading also.
Brandon Webb. Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide. New York, NY: Penguin Group, August 7th 2018. 221 pp.
5 out of 5
Purchase: Amazon
How do you handle fear? If you want to learn about handling fear from someone who has had a career of dealing with risky situations and fear then this book would be for you. The author of this book is Brandon Webb. Webb is a former Navy SEAL. He’s not only a Navy SEAL, a combat veteran (one tour in Iraq, one tour in Afghanistan) but also a sniper instructor for the SEALs who have trained famous SEAL warriors such as Chris Kyle (the top American sniper in history) and Marcus Luttrell, the lone survivor of Operation Redwing in 2005. From his experience and also his reflection he’s written this book about handling fear.
The opening of this book had me hooked; he began by telling the story of trying to help his friend learn how to swim. This particular individual was a decorated Army soldier who have also accomplished many other things in his life but one thing he’s never done was learn how to swim. The guy also tried to fix this by having classes on swimming and have other guys try to teach him. But the author Brandon Webb realized what he needs to deal with first is not learning how to swim but to deal with his friend’s fear of the water. Since Webb was conscious of this, this shapes the way he taught his friend and therefore was successful in getting him to swim whereas others weren’t able to teach him. Afterwards the friend told Webb he should write a book on mastering fear. I like this story because I can relate as someone who struggled to learn how to swim even though I’ve been in the military. But it’s also compelling because it was very ordinary and so you see this book is practical and for dealing with real life problem and not just extraordinary experience such as combat, life threatening situation, etc.
There are helpful contents in this book. I appreciate the author’s candor and honesty. It isn’t a false bravo book here. Webb teaches us to use fear and not deny fear and he’s pointed out how some methods of denying fear can be counter-productive. I’ve always felt that was quite true and it’s nice to see him flesh that out in details. But he’s also pointed out that fear can be a good thing in that it keeps us alive and concentrate, so long as that fear isn’t absorbing us into inaction. Also his discussion about safety as an illusion was important to point out since people often think they are safer than they really are. I don’t want to give the whole book away but it was worth reading this title. His final discussion of dealing with fear is one that I have personally used to keep me going in difficult situations in my life from the Marines and situations involving physical force when I was younger as a security guard in Hollywood.
I recommend this book.
Christian postscript: Obviously the book isn’t Christian but there’s principles to still learn here. For the Christian there’s an additional resource in dealing with fear which is to fear God more than man or the situation. Still, the book has things that are helpful if one read it with discernment.
Fear of God is the first wisdom.
It is Amen! Yet a loving fear of God is more comforting than fearing man, situations, etc., becuase He is gracious and merciful amen?
Amen.
Cool review! Sounds interesting.😃
Thanks for the comment! Since you commented on my book review on fear and evangelism is a topic of fear for many Christians (myself included) how did evangelism go?
Last Friday we had an amazing breakthrough. The Holy Spirit gave us utterance and without fear we proclaimed the gospel without fear.
I am more of an introvert by wow, God is amazing.
And we rejoiced every time we were mocked. It was awesome.😊
Thank you for your prayers pastor Jim.
Good bless you for evangelizing.
All for His glory! Blessings
Good review of what looks like an interesting book! And good tie-in exhortation for believers. Thanks.
I’ve taken a minibreak from comics to read these Navy Seals nonfiction self-improvement books. Which is why earlier I thought of your comic book reviews and thought I asked you about it…so hope that explains everything yesterday with our conversations lol.
Yup, I follow you!