LIVING WITHOUT FEAR:
Using the Psalms to End Your Worry
and Anxiety
By Kirsten Birkett
Self-published through Amazon.
168 pages. £12.67
ISBN 978 1 739 690 700
It would be a self-deceived, and ultimately foolish, follower of Jesus who denied ever being afraid, seeking to claim an advanced spirituality to this end.
Natural human fears of every type beset us routinely throughout life in a broken world. I, your reviewer, am living with a very real, natural fear right now; that a severe neuropathic pain syndrome that has beset me all year will never end. So I badly need this book by Kirsten Birkett, and have valued it hugely.
In Living without Fear, Birkett is ruthlessly honest in admitting the reality of fears of every kind in life. Her aim is to take the sufferer – any and every Christian – not to denial, nor to human philosophy or psychology or quackery, but to the character of God, especially as revealed in the Psalms, and to the promises of God revealed there in Christ.
She writes in a conversational, accessible style (e.g., ‘it’s’, not ‘it is’, ‘verse’, not ‘v.’, ‘Psalm’, not ‘Ps.’, etc.). Even more importantly, she writes with great sympathy, helpfully opening her own heart with convincing and admirable honesty. She avers that the majority of the fears that rise up within us find God-given amelioration when we take them in prayer to the God of the Psalms, on account of what we learn there of the greatness of the character of God found in these prayers of OT saints.
Opening chapters take us to the God who is the giver of rest, of safety and of security. Her exposition of Psalm 22 here is one of the best I have ever read, taking us, as the psalm does, from the reality of anguish and despondency through to the joyful reality of resurrection in Christ (‘He has done it!’, verse 31).
Birkett’s Bible-handling is admirable, and she is not slow to find fulfilment in Christ of the promises of these psalms. Subsequent chapters take us to the strength of God, His goodness, His mercy, His greatness and His forgiveness. Final chapters address three very common fears – fear of other people, of ageing, and of government (politics). In a second edition I would recommend further later chapters on, e.g., fear of failure, fear of not fitting in, fear of loss, etc. I commend Living without Fear wholeheartedly.
