Book Review The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller

The cover image for this book was taken from its Amazon buy page for review purposes under Fair Use doctrine.

The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller is a book designed to correctly orientate a believer’s thoughts in the correct direction. This book is extremely short. It’s less than an hour to listen to. The book is based on a segment of 1 Corinthians in which Paul declares he doesn’t care what others think. He doesn’t even care what he thinks (1 Corinthians 4:3).

I hesitate to say much more about the content of the book because of how short it is. It’s a lovely sermon, but I found myself thinking, “That’s right, I shouldn’t care … but I do, so how do I stop?”

And therein lies the problem I had with the book. It felt like I read this amazing prologue to a book I’d love to read, only I didn’t get the whole book. My problem is not in understanding how I should think, but in training myself in that correct way of thinking.

That’s what I wish the book had. This book had a beautiful message, but it didn’t have much if anything in the way of actionable guidance. Naturally one should seek scripture, and I am working on it. This book correctly identifies the problems of “anxiety” and “shame” and their origins. I just wish it had the rest of the content.

The basic premise is perfect, but as someone who does struggle with this issue, I wish there was more applicable or actionable information.

The portrait of Timothy Keller was taken from his Amazon author page for review purposes under Fair Use doctrine.

One takeaway I had from this is to constantly remind myself, “God is my judge!” Honestly, that’s helped. Even in what was a particularly stressful time recently, that helped me (or at least I think it did). So this book becomes a call to action for me that lacks the directions after the call is answered.

This isn’t to say the book isn’t good. I enjoyed what I heard. It’s a wonderful message.

Thanks for reading,
Matt