The Anxiety Opportunity

Reviews

Anxiety anticipates loss. Loss is unavoidable. But in a hopeful and personal book, Curtis Chang argues that we are held even in our loss and anxiety by a God who loves us and who will make all things new. I was encouraged by Chang's description of prayer, grieving, and community as holding practices that can replace the avoidance habits that lock us into anxiety. This book is a practical guide that is also a witness to grace.
Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD, Duke University Medical Center and Duke Divinity School

Anxiety is a widespread but not well understood condition. Curtis Chang, who has struggled with anxiety throughout his life, has written a book on anxiety that is sophisticated and sensitive, transparent and vulnerable, practical and faithful. The Anxiety Opportunity helps readers think about anxiety differently--constructively and biblically. Curtis has given us a gift--showing us how a problem can become an opportunity for spiritual growth. He has written a marvelous and necessary book.
Peter Wehner, senior fellow, The Trinity Forum; contributing opinion writer, New York Times; contributing writer, The Atlantic

Perceptive descriptions of anxiety come across powerfully, and readers will appreciate [Chang's] view that while anxiety can't be eliminated, it can fuel positive spiritual change. Even the simply stressed believer will find something to gain.
Publishers Weekly

To be anxious is to be human, for humans have indeed been anxious for as long as we have been on this earth. Moreover, each generation must address how it will respond to anxiety. Thanks be to God, Curtis Chang has not written a prescription for it; rather, he has opened for us a doorway into it--a doorway that leads to God, who is in all earnestness waiting for us in the very presence of our anxiety. Waiting to transform how we imagine it, which will lead to our becoming more deeply loved and beautifully transformed into the likeness of Jesus. For all of us who live with urgent anxiety, I invite you to allow what you hold in your hands to usher you through that doorway into comfort, confidence, and an opportunity to create the beauty and goodness that God longs for you to share with him.
Curt Thompson, MD, author of The Deepest Place, The Soul of Desire, and The Soul of Shame

We are living in an age when anxiety is sweeping us further into a polarized, rage-filled world to escape the fears we refuse to name. Curtis Chang is a brilliant and winsome reader of the soul and body and what every honest human being suffers in anticipation of loss. His reframing of anxiety as an opportunity to know our own hearts and even more the kindness of Jesus will bring rest even in the fear-storms we all face. This tender, theologically vibrant, and psychologically wise gift is not merely for those who suffer anxiety; it's for every human being who longs to know more of what it means to taste joy.
Dan B. Allender, PhD, professor of counseling psychology and founding president, The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology