The Anxiety Opportunity: How Worry Is the Doorway to Your Best Self

by Curtis Chang

What if instead of battling anxiety, you saw your worries as a doorway to spiritual transformation? Challenging the assumption that anxiety is the enemy, theologian, popular podcaster, and fellow sufferer of chronic anxiety Curtis Chang gives you a different framework for approaching fears. You will discover profound new ways of relating to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and those you love. Curtis Chang knows what it's like to view anxiety as a sin to overcome. He also knows how trying to get rid of anxiety through sheer faith or willpower usually leads to feelings of shame and frustration. After losing his job as a pastor due to debilitating anxiety, Curtis began the process of healing his heart. Combining years of personal experience, spiritual practice, and biblical study, Curtis discovered an alternative approach--one that sees anxiety as the path to our best selves in Christ. For all of us who feel stuck in a never-ending war with worry, The Anxiety Opportunity It's time to think differently about the relationship between anxiety and spiritual growth. This unique and profound exploration of one of the greatest epidemics of our time shows us how anxiety can be the very place we meet Jesus--and how channeling our anxiety can help us become more like him.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Christian, Psychology, Faith, Mental Health, Counselling

240 pages, Paperback

Published May 16, 2023

Reviews

[Jacqueline Fish · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t put this book down. I purchased this book not entirely sure if I actually struggle with anxiety, or if I just have “normal, reasonable”worries. This book blew my mind. It was like being invited to sit around the campfire with a trusted friend who, with kindness and compassion, unpacked the heavy and hard reality of anxiety, how we self deceive, it’s history, what coping looks like, and how to find rich purpose in it. Free of guilt and shame. Things were shared that I have never heard before about the anxiety of Jesus and how our hope of resurrection, practiced in our day to day, gives us deeper love of Jesus. It’s a guide to find self love, and to deepen love of others by holding space for loss. A wonderful read- the best in a long time for me. I can’t wait to get copies into the hands of those in my community.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great read!

Especially as someone raised in a “typical conservative” household, anxiety was looked at as weakness and not enough faith.

I enjoyed the looks into the churches response to mental health issues in this book and how we can better help those around us without adding fuel to the fire.

This is a good read especially for those feeling guilt or shame because of their anxiety.

[Brad Dell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anxiety and panic disorders have ravaged my peace since middle school. My anxious self scrambles for illusory control through obsessive crisis (over)management, or I’ll scold my discomfort with mantras — “Time heals!” My bookshelf bends beneath a thick collection of books instructing how to “get rid of anxiety.”

Though some reads kindled hope for one day “achieving” unceasing serenity, they framed anxiety only as irredeemably antagonistic to faith. Many insist anxiety must be suffocated because it serves no purpose beyond fertilizer for the plots of Satan, while others propose anxiety is nothing more than the noisy waste flowing from the absence of faith. Much of the Church feels we must dodge the anxiety, ignoring its presence by fixing our eyes on the Lord.

Yes, we must fix our eyes on the Lord .. but what if He is waiting to meet us in the very place we’re trying to flee?

Curtis Chang’s “The Anxiety Opportunity” argues we must go *through* anxiety because it presents a gateway to encountering Christ. Curtis records that in the Gospel of Mark, 27 of 29 people who personally approached Jesus exhibited anxiety about potential future loss. He anchors them in presentness, in the moment previously ripped away by anxiety. In this presentness many realize the Lord’s presence. Curtis wants to help us realize it, that anxiety can bring us to the Lord.

Curtis is careful to commend medication and therapy as aids in anxiety, but he also folds in practical spiritual advice that helps us to sit in our anxiety and meet the Lord. A few of these exercises are contemplative prayer, how to heighten our desires for restoration, communal lament. He reinforces his beliefs with something for everyone: psychological and biological research, scriptural insights, philosophy and even logical formulas.

His stories stick with me because many draw from moments of intense shame and even senselessness. In most books about anxiety, stories revolve around situations in which just about anyone would feel anxiety. A couple of Curtis’ stories, though, capture the humiliating nature of anxiety, that it can be irrational and built by paranoia rather than reality. The “ah, he gets it” feeling is good stuff, but what really makes his stories ring is he distills:
A. What memories or values triggered those anxious moments?
B. What patterns of fiction/fear drove the anxiety?
C. What was the opportunity to better know himself and God in it?
Throughout his book Curtis draws readers back to some of these stories, peeling back new layers each time he tests and explains new concepts and insights.

This investigative storytelling honors the complexity of every anxiety rather than reducing them to “a lack of faith” or “I was just being silly.” As irrational as anxiety can be, it’s composed of intertwined spiritual, emotional, and mental realities that are rarely obvious in initial reflection. He doesn’t belittle his anxieties with simplifications or by mocking himself (which would be to mock readers with anxiety!) but instead digs deep to their roots, role modeling prayerful soul work with the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Curtis is asking us to consider that if the Lord can redeem all things for the good of those who love Him, surely that includes our anxieties. I’m grateful that Curtis helped me to see this.

PS: I’m going through intense spiritual warfare in this season and of course anxiety has spiked. Reading this helped me to sit still for the first time in several weeks, to simply listen for the Lord in my anxiety, when every fiber of my being surges with restlessness. I asked Jesus to meet me there. Something shifted in my spirit today. I will press deeper.

[Allen Zhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friend Dongju mentioned The Anxiety Opportunity when I spontaneously called him one Sunday afternoon. He piqued my curiosity for this book when he applied one of the author’s main themes to point out how in certain realms of life I can exhibit avoidant tendencies that mask anxiety. I appreciate that the author, a former pastor who has succumbed to and done the work to process his own debilitating anxiety, presents anxiety not as a stigmatized problem, but as a spiritual growth opportunity, while also acknowledging the usefulness of therapy and medication. The main thing, and maybe the only thing, I will remember is the author’s formula Anxiety = Loss x Avoidance. Anxiety is driven by fear of future loss. While anxiety is an inevitable part of being human, normal anxiety becomes dysfunctional with avoidance behavior. A memorable snippet of the book includes the distinct avoidance patterns (“fight” vs “flight”) the author and his wife exhibit; these different responses can often be misinterpreted by the other, leading each to perceive a lack of care for the other’s anxiety. While some parts feel stretched out, ultimately, this book has nudged me to question: what are the potential future losses I fear, and how true or illusory are they really? What are the habits of avoidance I may exhibit? And what are things I ought to hold onto instead? To name these things is freeing.

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would genuinely recommend this book to anyone who has a religious background and suffers with anxiety… I listened to this on audio book and Curtis is like a calm older brother, encouraging and giving a welcome change of message from “you just need to trust God more”. A few descriptions of the anxiety mindset were stated in ways I’ve never heard, and have really helped me be able to improve and reframe my own moments of anxiety. I am so grateful.
Sincerely, probably one of, if not the singular, most helpful self help book I’ve read- read it for yourself, or to be a more loving, compassionate human towards those who struggle with anxiety daily.

[Katherine Augustine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing - life changing for me, even. I think about KEY parts of being a Christian differently, most notably my ideas about heaven. I will be giving this book to lots of people!!

[Holly Buhler · Rating 5 out of 5]

he anxiety opportunity - book notes
* Our world offers endless ways to feed our anxiety
* The now and not yet individual should be attuned to anxiety as both a hardship of the world yet pointing to heaven as a way of showing this world is not right nor home
* We are called to groan for transformation
* Anxiety is a call to go to our final destination
* People in the Bible approach Jesus through their anxiety
* Anxiety is the fear of loss
* Anxiety is never about the present but the future
* Anxiety pulls you from current reality
* Do we desire Gods blueprint or God?
* When we want a blueprint we want a WHAT (things)
* Heavenly Father or heavenly supply chain???
* You cannot feel anxious when you are fully present
* Nature is a playground for presence - where God wants us
* Anxiety is the meeting ground for Jesus
* As sure and real as our breath is always with us so is Jesus
* Relationships can only be built in the present - anxiety takes us away from the present and away from relationship with God
* Complintative Prayer - trust that God is present beyond your concousness and perception
* When we miss our internal reality we miss healing by placing the problem on external worries
* Jesus always refocused peoples outside problems and worries internally
* The more we rehearse an anxious narrative - the more we cannot imagine ourselves apart from that narrative
* Naming your fears helps recognize the fear (and bring to surface)
* Emotion is contagious
* With social media we no longer need to be in the same room to catch it
* Our ideal self rejects our anxious self - we need someone else to come along and accept our anxious self
* Acceptance of the anxious self comes first before Jesus heals the anxiety
* Our ideal self needs to accept our anxious self — we are not our own god on what is acceptable
* This acceptance brings spiritual growth
* These two parts are meant to live and grow together
* Movement can decrease anxiety
* We reject in others what we are insecure of in ourselves
* Normal responses to death and loss are becoming increasingly diagnosis
* Deep thoughts were the spirit in ancient times
* The spirit teams up with our thoughts and searches within us regardless of wheee the truth comes from
* Does this thought sound like Jesus in voice and content
* Reading the Bible helps us recognize Gods voice
* Pay attention to your defensiveness
* Idols resist being investigated

[Ginger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard author Curtis Chang on a podcast and thought his message was excellent—contrary to what many Christian circles claim, anxiety isn’t a sin, because Jesus himself experienced anxiety, as particularly evidenced in the garden of Gethsemane.

This book, however, is a prime example of what should have stayed a quick article or message being drawn out into a full-length book. I could see the EIC firmly at work here (as evidenced by the fact I heard the podcast and bought the book). His perspective as a lay person (as in, a sufferer of anxiety, not a professional) was accessible, though I do think because of that, he tried to shoehorn a few Biblical stories to the stretching point that I had trouble classifying as anxiety. His vocabulary and formulas I found a little trite at times (oh, the Unnecessary Capitalizations). And I quibble with a few other of his theological points where I believe he takes acceptance too far and at alternate times brushes over other, real and deep concerns, with acceptance.

Still, I am glad I kept reading (it was slim enough and a fast read) and would recommend this to several people, because his final chapters, on nurturing our imagination and holding practices, were very fine. To the point I wished he’d written THOSE books. (I’m also reading Karen Swallow Prior’s upcoming release, The Evangelical Imagination, so imagination is on the brain right now and the two complimented each other quite well.) It finishes very fine, even if I wish the book had spent more time on these topics because I found them practical and helpful. (His story about their wedding anniversary party alone was worth the price of admission.)

[Natasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts/chapters were easily 5* some were harder to follow 2*.

An interesting look at anxiety and linking it with spiritual growth from an author who genuinely has experienced it.

It was refreshing that Chang calls out the well meaning often biblically misunderstood rhetoric advice that he himself has noticed/experienced. If you have read The Badly Behaved Bible some of that will feel familiar when Chang explains how "helpful" scripture quotes when plucked out of their full context mean something different entirely. Acknowledging advice like pray and it will go away doesn't quite cut it and minimises how anxiety and mental health impacts individuals/society. But also acknowledging that for some people a balance between is helpful. He is advocating a rethink on some of the approaches often churned out, which will hopefully encourage further spiritual growth/peace not only for individuals, but the wider christian community.

While i didn't agree with all of it (or couldn't understand/get on board with some parts due to my own beliefs) some chapters really moved me. Chapter 12 "Throughlines to eternity" and Chapter 13 "Nurturing our imagination" both resonated with me and gave me an insight and understanding into Christianity more than most other avenues I've explored. While it wasn't a riveting read I mean its a book about anxiety after all. For me it's worth noting that this is the first "Christian/faith" book i haven't wanted to throw out the window in despair and frustration which in itself is a miracle. I did take some things away from it and I'm greatful to have read it.

[Beth Lorow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chang provides an excellent, helpful, biblically sound and authentic perspective on anxiety in this book. I found that Chang's personal, lifelong experience with anxiety made this book especially profound. He wrote from experience, and, therefore, never resorted to prompting feelings of guilt, shame, or sin for the anxious, Jesus-loving people (like me) reading his book.


I already know that this book deserves a careful re-read and that it would be excellent to read and process together in a group setting.

[Ro Givens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! My husband asked me to read this to decide if we should have our teenagers read it this summer (and they will be). I loved the combination of smart Christianity and practical anxiety management. I appreciated the idea of the “now and not yet.” It also helped me see how some behaviors in other people that bother me may be linked to their own anxiety, and it’s always easier to control my frustration with others when I understand them better.

[Grant Lewandowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provided a few really helpful tools to navigate anxiety as a follower of Jesus. I appreciated the personal and honest stories of the authors own experience with anxiety. This gave a really unique perspective that felt easier to relate with. I really enjoyed the last couple of chapters when he looks at Jesus, anxiety, and how we see this struggle even in the Bible.

His exegesis on Matthew 6 about not worrying about tomorrow has stuck with me for weeks after reading those pages. I love how this book is rooted in seeking Jesus first and what that alone means for our struggles like anxiety.

Anyways… I could go on, but I definitely recommend this book.

[Jared Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been struggling a lot lately with anxiety, mortality, and the concept of legacy.

Chang does an incredible job speaking to anxiety in the modern age and how the Christian faith addresses the topic differently than other common Western approaches.

The right book at the right time for me, and hopefully others too.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t give anxiety authority. Anxiety does not call the shots about what we can do and when. The authority is reserved for Jesus. Any time we catch ourselves saying ‘I can’t do that until I get my act together,’ we ought to ask if that voice is coming from our anxiety or from the Spirit of Jesus. Pg. 208

[Briggette Blalock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow I won a copy of this book from Goodreads, and I am currently enjoying the read of the book.

[Lori Pitchford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really appreciated the idea behind this book and the author seemed very likable and relatable. Despite the fact that I was very interested in the subject matter, however, I found this book difficult to get through and almost didn't even finish it.

First of all, I feel like the author oversimplified the issues regarding anxiety. Perhaps his findings were true for him personally, but I don't think they equally apply to everyone dealing with anxiety disorder. Yes, perhaps most anxiety stems from fear of something in the future, but many people with anxiety disorders have anxiety or panic attacks and truly don't understand the trigger. You can be standing in a room full of people and suddenly your body sends you the signal that you have to leave or you're going to die. What do you do with that? How do you reason with that? The whole process described in this book depends on you understanding your triggers (and those triggers having something to do with a fear for the future.)

Also, I felt like the book rambles. Like many Christian books about mental health, it can get into the theological weeds. There were multiple times that he went so deep into his biblical reasons for something, that by the time he finished explaining it, I couldn't remember the concept we were explaining anymore. To be fair, he didn't always need theology to get into the weeds. Sometimes he overexplained his points in general. This is what almost made me quit reading. Every time I picked this book up, I felt an inner groan, as if this was assigned reading that I had to get through. I realized that I wasn't enjoying reading it at all. There were some good thoughts and valuable insights in this book - that's why I ultimately completed it - but those things were buried in a lot of extraneous material.

Lastly, I have a major concern about any Christian mental health book (and this is far from the only one) that leans so heavily on the idea of our hope being in the afterlife. Anxiety and depression often go hand in hand, and continually telling people suffering through these issues that their only true hope is in what comes after death can be dangerous. This is a concept that can only be processed by people who are in a fairly good place mentally. There is a great deal of the book devoted to this idea. I think his observations are good, but I honestly believe that they are better suited for a different book and not one aimed at people dealing with mental illness. I respect that he found great hope in that, but he was fortunate to be able to process it in a healthy way. Many people with similar struggles aren't.

I do believe that there are people who will be helped by this book (other reviews verify that), but my experience with it was rather lackluster.

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Anxiety is part of how we were created.

Like everyone (and in keeping with how anxiety is talked about in the book), I have anxiety. I hate conflict. I do everything I can to avoid situations where I might be in conflict, especially conflict with people close to me. Curtis Chang suggests that anxiety is part of how we were created. We should have anxiety because we care. Part of how care for the world and those around us expresses itself is being anxious over the fear of loss. No anxiety at all would not show that we have great control over our emotions, but instead, it would show that we may not have appropriate care or love.

"Love: We suffer anxiety because we are vulnerable to losing what we most love. This further explains why anxiety is unavoidable for anyone who is truly human. To be free of anxiety is to be free of any love (which is capable of being lost), which in turn would mean becoming inhuman."

Chang uses formulas to illustrate how he wants to talk about anxiety. "Anxiety = Loss tells us that anxiety is generated by loss or, more specifically, by our fear of loss. Every anxiety is the fear of some future loss." Once that basic idea is explained, he expands on it to show how anxiety can be made worse: "Anxiety = Loss x Avoidance." Fear of loss is something that we all have. And he also identifies that a certain level of anxiety is also inevitable. But the part that moves us from normal anxiety to dysfunctional anxiety is our avoidance. It is common to speak about fight or flight (and sometimes fawn) as responses to stimuli. Chang also speaks about them as tools of avoidance.

"CEOs tend to have high-functioning anxiety, like I do. Also, like me, they tend to default to fight mode. They often plunge forward with their own versions of firing off long emails to their staff at three in the morning. Too often, their colleagues don’t push back. Team members don’t realize their leader’s behavior is anxiety-driven. Instead, they feel confused, insecure, guilty, and blamed. Anxiety spreads like a contagion throughout the entire organization."

Others (like me) tend to avoid our anxiety by pretending anxiety doesn't exist or by avoiding situations where it might pop up. One of the book's more helpful sections was the discussion about how different responses to anxiety impact relationships. Chang suggested that he tends to default to a fight response, and his wife tends to default to a flight response and that those different responses are interpreted by the other and a lack of care about their anxiety.

I will not talk about it more than mention it, but my daughter has been struggling with anxiety for a while. Her doctor suggested that we medicate in addition to counseling because of her age; she was establishing brain patterns in response to anxiety. So for about six months, she was on an anti-anxiety medication. Eventually, she felt like she wanted to come off because she had been able to work with her counselor to build more healthy responses to anxiety. She is still anxious (as all of us are), but she is responding to anxiety in a more healthy way. She may return to anti-anxiety meds in the future, but she has stopped for now and is reducing the frequency of her counseling appointments.

Chang speaks about this type of thing in the book:

"Avoidance habits, like any addiction, become ingrained in our minds. Neuroscience has shown actual physical ingraining happens constantly in our brains. Any action establishes a neural pathway in our brain; repeated actions deepen that pathway. Addictions are like destructive pathways where the grooves have gotten etched deeply over time, and we become mired in those ruts...A key to breaking any addiction is stopping that etching process as much as we can and replacing it with new actions that lay alternative—and healthier—neural pathways. This “stop and replace” work rarely happens suddenly, which is why the practical goal is to decrease (versus immediately eliminate) avoidance habits over time."

This is an overtly Christian book. He deals with Paul's passage about anxiety (do not be anxious) and, I think, most helpfully, the relationship between anxiety and sin:

"Let’s clarify one more time the relationship between anxiety and sin. Anxiety itself is not sin. It is an inevitable part of what it means to be humans living in the Now and Not Yet. And most avoidance habits—as dysfunctional as they are—are more accurately understood as “bad habits” than as outright sin. However, it is possible in some cases that the sin of idolatry can be lurking underneath anxious thoughts. This is precisely why the author of Psalm 139 asks God to “search my anxious thoughts” in order to ascertain if there is “any idolatrous way in me” (CEB)."

But even more significantly, the last couple of chapters about a long-term approach to anxiety include a discussion about eschatology, the theological idea of Christ's return, and eternity. This is helpful because it focuses not on eschatology as avoidance of problems today but dealing with them today because we can be confident in Christ eventually making all things right. So I am supportive of the overall focus and ton of the book.

But I have a couple of concerns, more with simplistic readings of the book rather than the book as a whole. When we think about the potential of loss, that loss is real. We will all die. All of our friends and family will also die. Some may die in old age without any significant pain or sickness. But others may die in tragedy and heartbreak. If we look at history and the world today, there is real tragedy, and being a Christian does not keep us from tragedy. We can see horrible loss and pain in the lives of many Christians throughout history. I do not think that Chang avoids this problem; he brings it up several times, but I do think there is a way to read this book that ignores how he handles this and still relies on Christ to make everything right in the here and now. We are not promised that everything will be made right here and now.

I was listening to a podcast with Hannah Anderson yesterday discussing her book on humility. During the podcast, she talks about how we can idealize rural communities and how many rural communities share and care for one another. Anderson rightly says that many idealize without understanding that the reason behind that communal care is communal poverty. Without need, we do not seek out or give help. Curtis Chang says, "...one likely causal factor behind the long-term increase of anxiety in our society is the extent to which mental labor has replaced physical labor in the workforce." He is making the point that we should do physical labor to engage our brains to process our anxiety. But this relates to Anderson's point because we can't benefit from many things we idealize without doing the other parts we do not idealize. Physical labor can help us process anxiety, but hard work also wears on our bodies and, over time, can cause our bodies to fail.

I think this is currently the book I would most recommend for those that are anxious, but it is not a silver bullet that will solve all of our problems around anxiety.

You can see my highlights and comments here.

This review was originally posted at my blog at https://bookwi.se/anxiety-opportunity/

[Horace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit I selected this book because I've been listening to *Good Faith*, a podcast led by Curtis Chang (and David French) and I've enjoyed it. I also selected it because I had access to a free version on Audible! However, I think I experience a "normal" amount of anxiety and would not otherwise have selected this as a topic of serious interest.

Chang writes out of his personal experience (he was a pastor who had to leave the ministry due to his anxiety), but he also roots his thoughts in the Bible, theology, and his understanding of modern counseling (he is not trained as a counselor). I can't comment on how well he incorporated counseling in this book, but I did find his use of the Bible and theology helpful. I particularly appreciated his recounting the number of instances Jesus was approached by anxious people (Chang categorizes the various types of their anxiety) and how Jesus handled their anxiety.

It was also interesting to hear how Jesus dealt with his own anxiety, e.g. in the Garden of Gethsemane. Chang notes that Jesus prayed for both avoidance ("Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me..." and for his own submission ("...yet not my will, but yours be done.") Chang says both types of prayer are important, but we tend to pray just for avoidance of those things that make us anxious and not also for a spirit of submission. Of course, it is not God's will for us to submit to everything that makes us anxious.

The end of the book focuses on how the resurrection and the great marriage feast of Heaven can help us with our anxiety- also interesting and helpful.

[Katie Caddell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to (and thought I would) like this book more. The beginning and end offered practical tips and spiritual guidance for managing and understanding anxiety. I also appreciated how Chang addressed the guilt and shame which can come from being an anxious person in certain strongly conservative, evangelical settings.
However, the middle section felt like reading a longgggg sermon. I got lost with all the metaphors, capitalized words, and equations. In his attempt to simplify the subject, it just became more confusing (at least for me). Overall, it was an important topic which desperately needs to be addressed, and I’m thankful this book is out there for people to benefit from.

P.S.——
Chang mentions that we “desperately need more worship songs with lyrics celebrating the actual resurrection of bodies and the redemption of the concrete world” instead of songs “reduced to a metaphor for a current-day emotional experience, change in moral behavior, or purely interior spiritual experience.”
I agree! The Anglican tradition has SO many meaningful and enriching hymns on so many topics. Here are 3 about the resurrection:

1. The Day of Resurrection
https://youtu.be/Nt9HWuoRrws?si=Ibgqm...

2. This Joyful Eastertide
https://youtu.be/ILZYkINo1FQ?si=uqDp2...

3. Christ the Lord is Risen Today
https://youtu.be/nFaUcHLKT4A?si=yoBJv...

BONUS (for anxious people in general):

Christ our Hope in Life and Death
https://youtu.be/OibIi1rz7mw?si=T9XcJ...

Christ the Sure and Steady Anchor
https://youtu.be/CMC2IWyDk18?si=KHa_A...

[Jessica Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a person who grapples with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and other mental health issues, I found this resource to be one of my TOP books on anxiety, which can also create depression. I know I will be revisiting this book many times in the future because it’s that good. It has a beautiful balance of theological and psychological insights. For the first time, I encountered a book that affirms anxiety as a normal human experience and that we can’t just “pray it away.” How the author wrote about Jesus’ anxiety in the Garden of Gethsemane and his grief over Lazarus’ death has forever changed how I view Jesus’ experience on Earth.
I wish I had this book 10 years ago.


Things I Want to Remember:

Anxiety = Loss x Avoidance
Anxiety = Loss / Holding
Use movement to disrupt rumination
Avoidance tactics mirror fight or flight tendencies
Holding = 1. Prayer 2. Grieving the Loss 3. Community
We need to use our anxiety to connect with God and bring Him into that space.
The ideal self vs. the anxious self struggle
Practicing Jesus’ and your acceptance of the anxious self
Let anxiety lead to spiritual transformation
Tune in to the different frequencies that anxiety broadcasts.
Decrease avoidance actions
Build up the capacity to handle “major” loss by holding every day losses
What we lose, we get back in eternity

[Lori White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Curtis Chang, author, podcaster, seminary faculty member, and former pastor, has battled anxiety since he was a latchkey kid in the 1970s. As Chang grew, his ability to hide or cope with anxiety became so sophisticated that even he was surprised when a debilitating bout of anxiety led to a personal breakdown, the loss of his pastorate, and months of depression. Chang knows about anxiety.
Curtis Chang also knows Jesus. Chang writes, “. . . for a Christian, anxiety is one of the most powerful opportunities for transformation we’ll ever encounter.” He goes on to say that he has grown more in Christlikeness because of his anxiety.
Chang uses a conversational style of writing, along with many personal, relatable examples, to guide the reader through simple practices for discovering opportunity in anxiety. Breathing exercises, prayer, community, and an accurate perspective of eternity challenge a reader’s preconceived ideas about anxiety. When we contend with anxiety through the practices described in this book, we give anxiety the opportunity to transform us into our best selves.
Curtis Chang is a theologian and senior fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the host of Good Faith, a leading podcast that helps Christians make sense of the world.

[Chien-Wei Kung · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give this book 4.5 stars. In this book, Curtis provides some very helpful insights from his own life, including him sharing a difficult time where he experienced such debilitating anxiety that ended his career as a pastor. I appreciated his candor, honesty, and vulnerability throughout the book. His personal examples made it easy to relate. One of the most helpful and freeing things he says in the book is at the beginning, that anxiety does not equal sin. Anxiety is an emotion humans experience due to us not yet living in the redeemed kingdom. One could say that Jesus was anxious the night before his crucifixion. He certainly was not sinful in experiencing that emotion. All the "Do not be anxious" statements in the bible were meant to be comforts from a loving father to a child instead of a stern command.
Curtis gives some great ways of tuning down the anxiety in our lives. One of the big themes of the book is that we realize that we get anxious because we fear loss, but God will one day restore all the losses we have, and give us back infinitely more in the glories of heaven.

[Chelsae · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars- maybe 4, depending on the chapter. What I really appreciated about the book was how it framed anxiety as a normative human experience. That shouldn’t be groundbreaking, but many Christians are under the impression that fear and concern is a sin of commission rather than the natural result of a broken world. In that reality, anxiety is an “opportunity” to approach God, rather than in shame to be driven away from Him. I also really liked the emphasis on “holding” and grief in navigating anxious feelings.

There were some aspects of exegesis I found less convincing (I’m not a theologian but some of his arguments were more compelling than others). Some of the chapters were…maybe not boring, but certainly not new info, and might be better coming from the many other resources available regarding anxiety management. That said, I took a long break from the book and only recently returned to it. Nevertheless, it’s easy to read, encouraging, and I think ultimately helpful for any Christian who has been made to feel like their experience of anxiety is inherent disobedience rather than an opportunity to draw near the One who cares for them.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Our ultimate goal isn’t anxiety reduction - it is to fulfill our calling”

The Anxiety Opportunity is a self-help/theological reflection on how anxiety can help one on the spiritual journey.

I loved the overall message of this book — that anxiety is not a sin, but an opportunity to grow closer to Christ. It clearly reiterated some of my own thoughts about how God meets us in the journey, not after we’ve perfected ourselves.

Although I enjoyed the message, I felt the book to be rather theologically heavy. It may be better suited for those working in ministry or with a strong background in theology. I was more interested in reading personal stories and practical tips, which were included but not to the degree I would have enjoyed.

I would suggest this read for anyone interested in mental health from a biblical perspective, who doesn’t mind going deep into theological content.

---

Content - mental health issues (specifically anxiety, depression, grief)

Language - there was no explicit language, but there was slang that threw me off guard

[Joanna Stensland · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the first pages of the book I was drawn in by the description of the author's anxiety, from childhood to adulthood - he was not speaking from an outsider's perspective but as someone who has himself suffered from debilitating anxiety like myself. This gave me hope right from the start. The author understood me and knew all about the anxiety that has plagued me for as long as I can remember. What followed was a compassionate and insightful close-up examination of anxiety accompanied by a framework for dealing with anxiety that completely made sense in a way nothing else had before. It foundationally shifted my perspective. This wasn't just an interesting and somewhat useful book, the wisdom contained therein changed my life and my relationship with anxiety forever. I am deeply grateful.

[Suzanne Noakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was accurate, encouraging, and touching. Curtis Chang did a good job of articulating the causes of anxiety and explaining how Biblical theology can inform how we see and address anxiety. I loved how he framed God's interaction with the loss in our life as Him *redeeming* our suffering. Curtis' personal transparency throughout the book gave an immediacy to the points that he was making. While grieving wasn't the point of the book, his treatment of it in the final chapter was particularly relevant to me as I experienced the same disconnect as he described in his own loss of his father. His responses gave me insight into my own.

I'm stocking up on extra copies because this one is going in Christmas stockings!

[Ben Shore · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

First, I love the Good Faith podcast and am so happy I got my hands on this book! I found myself taking my time with this book to get into it, but when it got going it was great! Even the chapters I did not specifically vibe with were helpful, but I ESPECIALLY loved chapter 5 and the later chapters on the resurrection/loss. I found all the concepts in these books helpful but the ideas in these chapters were supreme. Very practical coping strategies for anxiety as well as ways to view our anxiety through loss and the resurrection that I have already started diving into. I found these resources to be refreshing especially for my background and the new perspectives are sure to be helpful for any Christian.

[Caleb Hall · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book felt to me like a guy who sees everything through the lens of anxiety was trying to find a biblical basis for methods to lessen the symptoms of anxiety. He never addresses the root of anxiety, has an overly broad definition of anxiety, and uses Scripture only when he finds support for his preconceived notions. He sees anxiety as a normal part of life and is only concerned with how to alleviate or lessen some of the symptoms. Even his attempt at a theological basis for avoiding it is focused solely on us, and therefore misses the root of anxiety entirely. If I struggled with chronic anxiety, I believe I would walk away no better and have no new understanding that would help me put this sin to death.

[Aaron Beane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was so excited to have a book that more effectively addresses this topic from a Christian perspective. Often the church misunderstands or minimizes mental health. I loved connecting this material to my personal life, broadening my relationship with how God sees us in our anxieties, and gaining new tools to engage with anxiety and others experiencing it. The writing in this book could definitely be a bit better. The author falls into the trap that pastors often do when writing books - unrelatable or cheesy life examples and metaphors that stretch too long. Overall a great book for anyone, as we all have anxiety to varying degrees.

[Jeff Brawner · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Mr. Chang became a nationwide speaker on anxiety, then reading his book on the topic seemed appropriate. I think he excelled in giving practical steps, but at times his world probably differed greatly from the majority of readers, which hindered the ability to empathize with him.
Still, it’s a solid read for someone working with people in anxiety or struggling with anxiety as a whole. Living in the present, recognizing that all losses are inevitable but also temporary, and accepting that anxiety is unavoidable in life (on this I couldn’t help but see some red flags), were all noble, if at times slightly questionable, pieces of advice.