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Holy Unhappiness: God, Goodness, and the Myth of the Blessed Life
Discover what it means to be blessed and challenge the false beliefs many in the church hold about “the good life” and what it means to walk in communion with God.
American Christians have developed a long list of expectations about what the life with God will feel like. Many Christians rightly deny the prosperity gospel—the idea that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy— but instead embrace its more subtle spin-off, the emotional prosperity gospel, or the belief that happiness and spiritual euphoria will inevitably follow if you believe all the right things and make all the right choices. In this view, frustration is deemed unholy, fear is seen as a failure of faith, and sadness is a sign of God’s disfavor.
In Holy Unhappiness, Amanda Held Opelt, author of A Hole in the World, grapples with her own experience of disillusionment when life with God didn’t always feel the way she expected it to feel. She examines some of the historic, religious, and cultural influences that led to the idolization of positive feelings and the marginalization of negative feelings. Unpacking nine elements of life that have been tainted by the message of the emotional Prosperity Gospel – including work, marriage, parenting, calling, community, and church - she points to a new path forward, one that reimagines what the “blessed” life can be like if we release some of our expectations and seek God in places we never thought to look.
This is a book that asks “what good is God?” when he doesn’t always make sorrow go away or soothe every fear. It is a book that explores our aversion to sadness and counts the costs of our unrelenting commitment to optimism. This is a book that insists there is holiness to be found even in our unhappiness.
American Christians have developed a long list of expectations about what the life with God will feel like. Many Christians rightly deny the prosperity gospel—the idea that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy— but instead embrace its more subtle spin-off, the emotional prosperity gospel, or the belief that happiness and spiritual euphoria will inevitably follow if you believe all the right things and make all the right choices. In this view, frustration is deemed unholy, fear is seen as a failure of faith, and sadness is a sign of God’s disfavor.
In Holy Unhappiness, Amanda Held Opelt, author of A Hole in the World, grapples with her own experience of disillusionment when life with God didn’t always feel the way she expected it to feel. She examines some of the historic, religious, and cultural influences that led to the idolization of positive feelings and the marginalization of negative feelings. Unpacking nine elements of life that have been tainted by the message of the emotional Prosperity Gospel – including work, marriage, parenting, calling, community, and church - she points to a new path forward, one that reimagines what the “blessed” life can be like if we release some of our expectations and seek God in places we never thought to look.
This is a book that asks “what good is God?” when he doesn’t always make sorrow go away or soothe every fear. It is a book that explores our aversion to sadness and counts the costs of our unrelenting commitment to optimism. This is a book that insists there is holiness to be found even in our unhappiness.
244 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 18, 2023
61 people are currently reading
2855 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Held Opelt
4 books98 followersAmanda Held Opelt is a songwriter, speaker, and author of the books A Hole in the World and Holy Unhappiness. She writes about faith, grief, and creativity, and believes in the power of community, ritual, shared worship, and storytelling to heal even our deepest wounds. Amanda has spent 15 years serving in the non-profit and humanitarian aid sectors. She lives in the mountains of Boone, North Carolina, with her husband and two young daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 120 reviews
March 28, 2025
I sometimes noticed, long before I received this book to review, that I often find happiness through Exclusion. Maybe, with Ms Opelt feeling the same way, it's in the AIR?
Is this true of other people? To be happy we Must First Exclude Unpleasantness from our lives!? Just, you know, practice AVOIDANCE in our Ivory Towers? Yikes.
Oh, boy. The day I saw that I opened a real can of worms! But it's getting better, now...
Cause I started to stop shutting out the world. I started to notice all the Little Things of Life more!
The astringent cool breath of a sudden autumnal wind. The delight of a friend or neighbour upon seeing we both share an unpopular opinion. The smile on my wife's face when I protest less, and do more that makes for a genial home ambience.
And such little things, Amanda Opelt says, make our world spin hummingly.
What a pleasant surprise!
She's right. We're NOT here to reach agreement on a point of church dogma. We're not here to praise the Lord out loud. We're here to witness to our own ways of sharing our love for each other.
We can do those things, but we don't have to be LOUD in our faith. Smiling together over a bee sipping nectar from a garden marigold says enough. Relax, folks!
We can be quiet.
We're not here to be wealthy movers of minds, and we're not even forced to think we're happy every day of our lives when maybe we're sometimes not. The Lord wasn't either of those, you know.
We're here to share our lives with others, and in So doing, perhaps lessen their load a tiny bit.
Ms Opelt is right: life's not easy. But we DON'T turn around and think that's not Christian to think that way! And avoid reality.
These days my wife and I, being retired oldsters, spend most of a halcyon day outside pottering around with our hobbies. Neighbours pass by frequently. If they smile and wave, we return the greeting. If they don''t - no problem.
We're Flower Children, the two of us, and often I think of the straights who chummed around with us Jesus Freaks in the seventies and eighties and say to myself:
I do my thing
And you do your thing.
I am not here
To live up to your expectations
And you're not here
To live up to mine!
But...
If by chance we see eye to eye,
It's so GROOVY.
Thanks so much, Amanda. Five stars.
Is this true of other people? To be happy we Must First Exclude Unpleasantness from our lives!? Just, you know, practice AVOIDANCE in our Ivory Towers? Yikes.
Oh, boy. The day I saw that I opened a real can of worms! But it's getting better, now...
Cause I started to stop shutting out the world. I started to notice all the Little Things of Life more!
The astringent cool breath of a sudden autumnal wind. The delight of a friend or neighbour upon seeing we both share an unpopular opinion. The smile on my wife's face when I protest less, and do more that makes for a genial home ambience.
And such little things, Amanda Opelt says, make our world spin hummingly.
What a pleasant surprise!
She's right. We're NOT here to reach agreement on a point of church dogma. We're not here to praise the Lord out loud. We're here to witness to our own ways of sharing our love for each other.
We can do those things, but we don't have to be LOUD in our faith. Smiling together over a bee sipping nectar from a garden marigold says enough. Relax, folks!
We can be quiet.
We're not here to be wealthy movers of minds, and we're not even forced to think we're happy every day of our lives when maybe we're sometimes not. The Lord wasn't either of those, you know.
We're here to share our lives with others, and in So doing, perhaps lessen their load a tiny bit.
Ms Opelt is right: life's not easy. But we DON'T turn around and think that's not Christian to think that way! And avoid reality.
These days my wife and I, being retired oldsters, spend most of a halcyon day outside pottering around with our hobbies. Neighbours pass by frequently. If they smile and wave, we return the greeting. If they don''t - no problem.
We're Flower Children, the two of us, and often I think of the straights who chummed around with us Jesus Freaks in the seventies and eighties and say to myself:
I do my thing
And you do your thing.
I am not here
To live up to your expectations
And you're not here
To live up to mine!
But...
If by chance we see eye to eye,
It's so GROOVY.
Thanks so much, Amanda. Five stars.
January 3, 2025
Well, this is quite refreshing. Opelt is an extremely dedicated Christian who always saw the “prosperity gospel” as a great perversion of her faith. But she only gradually saw that she was suffering from a related delusion, namely “the emotional prosperity gospel.” She had bought the prescription that “Believe the right things and you will feel the right way.” Or, “Suffering is a result of a negative mindset or lack of faith.” So when her very devoted life was still hard and often painful, it was something to cover up. It was a shameful failure to be the message needed by the world. Actually, “sadness” was at one point named as one of the “7 deadly sins.”
In this story of her life, Opelt honestly traces her follies and discoveries about facing what she feels, and accepting what others feel, rather than trying to correct all that by sheer willpower. Though she uses biblical language, her practices of listening and suspending judgement remind me of mindfulness meditation. I like the parts where she candidly talks like a good friend about her personal experience. Of course she also relates such experience to passages from the Bible, translating her insights to that language. And occasionally she just starts with Bible passages and writes as if giving a sermon more than holding a discussion. In doing that, she sometimes almost loses me with her theological traditionalisms, as when she explains that the ground we walk on was corrupted by Adam and Eve’s first sin. Or when she defends the worth of grief by reasoning that “In John 11:35, Jesus weeps over the death of Lazarus even though he knows he’ll be resurrecting him just a little while later.” Overall though, I find her honesty inspiring. I’d say it’s a powerful spiritual practice.
In this story of her life, Opelt honestly traces her follies and discoveries about facing what she feels, and accepting what others feel, rather than trying to correct all that by sheer willpower. Though she uses biblical language, her practices of listening and suspending judgement remind me of mindfulness meditation. I like the parts where she candidly talks like a good friend about her personal experience. Of course she also relates such experience to passages from the Bible, translating her insights to that language. And occasionally she just starts with Bible passages and writes as if giving a sermon more than holding a discussion. In doing that, she sometimes almost loses me with her theological traditionalisms, as when she explains that the ground we walk on was corrupted by Adam and Eve’s first sin. Or when she defends the worth of grief by reasoning that “In John 11:35, Jesus weeps over the death of Lazarus even though he knows he’ll be resurrecting him just a little while later.” Overall though, I find her honesty inspiring. I’d say it’s a powerful spiritual practice.
September 3, 2023
Wow. I really enjoyed this book. Probably one of my favorites of the year. It is thoroughly researched, well articulated, and every chapter challenged me in some way. Plus, her writing style is beautiful.
4.5/5 stars.
Some notable quotes:
"We are a culture that has forgotten how to be sad. We don't know how to grieve or be angry. We palliate pain, and numb discomfort with drugs, entertainment, busyness and productivity. We've marginalized unhappiness, removed it from our vocabulary. Most negative feelings have been pathologized, stigmatized, and named as being outside the realm of normal. Instead, we have normalized peace, prosperity and positivity. We whitewash our narratives, leave out all the shameful failures…”
"Perhaps Eve's most profound failure was not her inability to recognize deceit, but rather her inability to recognize delight... And so, that depravity has woven its sad thread through the human story ever since. We earnestly pursue the right script or the perfect system that will make happiness the paradigm and sadness an anomaly... Would not the world have been a different place had only Adam and Eve stopped to savor what was instead of what could be?"
"We are most comfortable with neat, tidy categories - with blessings that are pristine in every way. It's hard to imagine that anything good could also be hard."
"There's nothing wrong with wanting a good life. And there's nothing wrong with wanting a life that feels purposeful, exciting even. The problem is that most of our preferred containers of meaning - work, marriage, ministry - will at some point fail to bring us that coveted sense of significance. So much of life is mundane. Ordinary. Just because something is boring doesn't mean it's not important."
"In a world where self-discovery is our highest virtue - where influence and attention are our most prized outcomes - Jesus offers us a radical alternative: the self-emptying freedom of humility."
“Christianity is not an apparatus of abundance or a contractual agreement with God that ensures he will give you everything you ever wanted. Christianity is a Covenant, a binding of oneself to God and to his ways, not as a service rendered for payment, but as a response to an invitation of love.”
4.5/5 stars.
Some notable quotes:
"We are a culture that has forgotten how to be sad. We don't know how to grieve or be angry. We palliate pain, and numb discomfort with drugs, entertainment, busyness and productivity. We've marginalized unhappiness, removed it from our vocabulary. Most negative feelings have been pathologized, stigmatized, and named as being outside the realm of normal. Instead, we have normalized peace, prosperity and positivity. We whitewash our narratives, leave out all the shameful failures…”
"Perhaps Eve's most profound failure was not her inability to recognize deceit, but rather her inability to recognize delight... And so, that depravity has woven its sad thread through the human story ever since. We earnestly pursue the right script or the perfect system that will make happiness the paradigm and sadness an anomaly... Would not the world have been a different place had only Adam and Eve stopped to savor what was instead of what could be?"
"We are most comfortable with neat, tidy categories - with blessings that are pristine in every way. It's hard to imagine that anything good could also be hard."
"There's nothing wrong with wanting a good life. And there's nothing wrong with wanting a life that feels purposeful, exciting even. The problem is that most of our preferred containers of meaning - work, marriage, ministry - will at some point fail to bring us that coveted sense of significance. So much of life is mundane. Ordinary. Just because something is boring doesn't mean it's not important."
"In a world where self-discovery is our highest virtue - where influence and attention are our most prized outcomes - Jesus offers us a radical alternative: the self-emptying freedom of humility."
“Christianity is not an apparatus of abundance or a contractual agreement with God that ensures he will give you everything you ever wanted. Christianity is a Covenant, a binding of oneself to God and to his ways, not as a service rendered for payment, but as a response to an invitation of love.”
November 3, 2025
Ganz cool! Ist kein Selfhelp mit einfachen Antworten, sondern eher eine Dekonstruktion von klassisch evangelikalem Selfhelp. Dabei bleibt sie seeeeehr fromm, stellt aber trotzdem sehr ehrliche Fragen.
Vor Allem wehrt sie sich gegen romantisierte christliche Lebensvorstellungen und ein sehr individualistisch und therapeutisch verstandenes Evangelium.
Traurigkeit wird nicht aus dem Leben eliminiert, wenn man „richtig“ glaubt. Sie verliert auch nicht ihre Kraft. Diese Annahme vergleicht sie immer wieder mit einem Wohlstandsevangelium und nennt sie „emotional prosperity Gospel“. Da trifft sie glaub ich den freikirchlichen Zeitgeist - richtig nice.
Irgendwie ist das Buch sehr viel gleichzeitig. So super klassisch amerikanisch evangelikal und doch kritisch demgegenüber. Teilweise neue hilfreiche Perspektiven, aber auch einige Abschnitte, die gar nicht neu wirkten. Origineller Ansatz und gleichzeitig austauschbar.
Mein Eindruck war, dass ihre Stärke das Schreiben und teils kritisches Denken ist, aber sie immer wieder um den eigentlich coolen Punkt in schönen Worten drum herum eiert.
Am Ende fühlt sich das Buch wie eine inspirierende Storytime an, von einer sehr frommen Christin, die man nicht kennt und die trotzdem extrem intim und detailliert erzählt. Sie kann gut erzählen und ihre Biographie ist bewegend, aber so Situationen sind auch immer ein bisschen weird
Vor Allem wehrt sie sich gegen romantisierte christliche Lebensvorstellungen und ein sehr individualistisch und therapeutisch verstandenes Evangelium.
Traurigkeit wird nicht aus dem Leben eliminiert, wenn man „richtig“ glaubt. Sie verliert auch nicht ihre Kraft. Diese Annahme vergleicht sie immer wieder mit einem Wohlstandsevangelium und nennt sie „emotional prosperity Gospel“. Da trifft sie glaub ich den freikirchlichen Zeitgeist - richtig nice.
Irgendwie ist das Buch sehr viel gleichzeitig. So super klassisch amerikanisch evangelikal und doch kritisch demgegenüber. Teilweise neue hilfreiche Perspektiven, aber auch einige Abschnitte, die gar nicht neu wirkten. Origineller Ansatz und gleichzeitig austauschbar.
Mein Eindruck war, dass ihre Stärke das Schreiben und teils kritisches Denken ist, aber sie immer wieder um den eigentlich coolen Punkt in schönen Worten drum herum eiert.
Am Ende fühlt sich das Buch wie eine inspirierende Storytime an, von einer sehr frommen Christin, die man nicht kennt und die trotzdem extrem intim und detailliert erzählt. Sie kann gut erzählen und ihre Biographie ist bewegend, aber so Situationen sind auch immer ein bisschen weird
September 9, 2025
This book felt, in some ways, like a modern day rendering of Psalm 73 which starts about by affirming that God is good to His children, then gives voice to broken expectations, confusion, and disillusionment before returning to the fact that the presence of God Himself is His continual, extravagant goodness to us.
Opelt dives into the expectations we carry in various areas of our lives (work, marriage, parenthood: to name a few) that attempt to predict just what God’s goodness will mean, feel, or look like for us. She speaks to the ripple effects of the prosperity gospel - namely, the emotional-prosperity gospel which I find to be a fascinating framework and one which resonates in many ways.
Opelt dives into the expectations we carry in various areas of our lives (work, marriage, parenthood: to name a few) that attempt to predict just what God’s goodness will mean, feel, or look like for us. She speaks to the ripple effects of the prosperity gospel - namely, the emotional-prosperity gospel which I find to be a fascinating framework and one which resonates in many ways.
July 24, 2025
This was one of the hardest books I’ve ever read because it questioned assumptions that I was not aware I believed. It confronts the myth that we are owed happiness as a result of following Jesus & asks readers to question where demand, desire, & absence of happiness stems from.
It answers the question “what does a blessed life look like?” And the answer isn’t ease.
One of my top books for the year!
It answers the question “what does a blessed life look like?” And the answer isn’t ease.
One of my top books for the year!
September 17, 2023
A 4.5. I was given a PDF of this text from the publisher, and because I loved Opelt's “A Hole in the World,” I happily agreed to read and review it. Like her first book, Opelt gives us thoughtful wisdom through solid writing. Although it did not resonate with me to the same degree as "A Hole in the World," how could it? That was a book on grief, which I read while deep in emotional messiness right after my dad died.
Here, Opelt tackles what she calls the "emotional prosperity" gospel--do good, be good, and boom! #blessed. In short, that Christians should always be happy. They are both entitled to it, because they're just so darned GOOD, and if they are not happy, something is wrong with them. Opelt argues that not only is this thinking not true--terrible things happen to wonderful people--it leaves little room to grow, heal, or hope. Like "A Hole in the World," Opelt insists on the rightness of lament, of grief, of feeling the feelings, not shoving everything down with a smile, oodles of productivity, and a sweet little positive saying painted on reclaimed barn wood (her example, dang it, not mine). She rightfully skewers toxic positivity--as a brooder, toxic positivity is something I've always loathed--and this delighted me. The co-existence of joy and grief is possible and, actually, often quite right.
A couple tiny criticisms: The text covers themes such as work, marriage, etc., and this set up does require "A history of . . ." section in many chapters. A two-page summary of the history of global economics (work) or the nuclear family (marriage) to contextualize our modern understanding was, I suppose, necessary, but I didn't love those overviews. The afterword was charmingly too long. "It's okay, Amanda," I wanted to say, "end the book."
The chapter on suffering was spectacular. If it's not the subject of her next book, I'll be shocked. And probably disappointed. The chapter on hope was also top notch. Opelt's criticism of purity culture/"true love waits" as a form of emotional prosperity distortion was eye-opening in a DUH sort of way. I mean, woe to the girl in a 1990s youth group during the sex and dating series. I have read a lot of criticism on that movement, I lived through it, and I HAVE OPINIONS, but this "stay pure and your marriage and sex life will be AMAZING" lie of purity culture somehow got past me, and I'm glad Opelt called it out. I tend to focus on all the other things wrong with purity culture. But I digress.
Opelt is incredibly self-reflective and . . . hard on herself. I wouldn't call her navel gazing or self-absorbed, because her experience reads as authentic and there is much to be gained by the reader from her vulnerability. For me, it resonated; her experience is a major part of what makes her writing so readable and relatable. Definitely worth a read.
Here, Opelt tackles what she calls the "emotional prosperity" gospel--do good, be good, and boom! #blessed. In short, that Christians should always be happy. They are both entitled to it, because they're just so darned GOOD, and if they are not happy, something is wrong with them. Opelt argues that not only is this thinking not true--terrible things happen to wonderful people--it leaves little room to grow, heal, or hope. Like "A Hole in the World," Opelt insists on the rightness of lament, of grief, of feeling the feelings, not shoving everything down with a smile, oodles of productivity, and a sweet little positive saying painted on reclaimed barn wood (her example, dang it, not mine). She rightfully skewers toxic positivity--as a brooder, toxic positivity is something I've always loathed--and this delighted me. The co-existence of joy and grief is possible and, actually, often quite right.
A couple tiny criticisms: The text covers themes such as work, marriage, etc., and this set up does require "A history of . . ." section in many chapters. A two-page summary of the history of global economics (work) or the nuclear family (marriage) to contextualize our modern understanding was, I suppose, necessary, but I didn't love those overviews. The afterword was charmingly too long. "It's okay, Amanda," I wanted to say, "end the book."
The chapter on suffering was spectacular. If it's not the subject of her next book, I'll be shocked. And probably disappointed. The chapter on hope was also top notch. Opelt's criticism of purity culture/"true love waits" as a form of emotional prosperity distortion was eye-opening in a DUH sort of way. I mean, woe to the girl in a 1990s youth group during the sex and dating series. I have read a lot of criticism on that movement, I lived through it, and I HAVE OPINIONS, but this "stay pure and your marriage and sex life will be AMAZING" lie of purity culture somehow got past me, and I'm glad Opelt called it out. I tend to focus on all the other things wrong with purity culture. But I digress.
Opelt is incredibly self-reflective and . . . hard on herself. I wouldn't call her navel gazing or self-absorbed, because her experience reads as authentic and there is much to be gained by the reader from her vulnerability. For me, it resonated; her experience is a major part of what makes her writing so readable and relatable. Definitely worth a read.
December 14, 2023
I need a book club (or a spirituality night- shoutout the girlies) for this one because there were lots of words that resonated, lots I needed to read for a reframe, and also lots I disagreed with. BUT it made me think & question- and isn't that the point of faith?
"I am realizing now that every category of our lives has a system associated with it, a set of assumptions and underlying beliefs that inform our experiences and expectations."
"There is a deep pain in the small daily afflictions: work is wearisome, relationships are frustrating, our resolve is finite, and our optimism fails."
"I lay my head on the pillow at night and wonder how to characterize my life- is it good, is it hard, do I struggle with it, do I love it? The answer is yes to all of the above."
"Loving others well is inherently inconvenient. Community, by its very nature, is perilous to the ego."
"Humans are not creatures of either/or. We are creatures of both/and."
"Being a person of hope means we live with an abiding frustration with how things are because we are keenly aware of how things should be."
"I am realizing now that every category of our lives has a system associated with it, a set of assumptions and underlying beliefs that inform our experiences and expectations."
"There is a deep pain in the small daily afflictions: work is wearisome, relationships are frustrating, our resolve is finite, and our optimism fails."
"I lay my head on the pillow at night and wonder how to characterize my life- is it good, is it hard, do I struggle with it, do I love it? The answer is yes to all of the above."
"Loving others well is inherently inconvenient. Community, by its very nature, is perilous to the ego."
"Humans are not creatures of either/or. We are creatures of both/and."
"Being a person of hope means we live with an abiding frustration with how things are because we are keenly aware of how things should be."
May 2, 2024
Looking for joy and avoiding pain is one of the great themes of my life, which means I could relate deeply to Holy Unhappiness. This book goes beyond health and wealth and explores many of the more subtle places we look for happiness in our life with God (she refers to this as a kind of “emotional prosperity gospel”) — marriage, parenting, work, calling, community, etc. The author doesn’t use God as a quick band-aid for our longings and discomfort, but wrestles with the reality of disappointment and unmet expectations — a bit like a modern Qohelet from Ecclesiastes. A real encouragement for anyone feeling a little disgruntled or disoriented in their life with God.
September 18, 2023
Beautiful words and perspective for our pain & brokenness.
This book has been a gift to me. I snagged it from the new shelf at the library because it had the word unhappiness in the title. I had low expectations but found that It felt like a cup of tea, a therapy session, a balm, and light in the darkness. I laughed, I cried a lot, and I found validation for my raw emotions and also hope that He is good & kind, even when life is not.
This book has been a gift to me. I snagged it from the new shelf at the library because it had the word unhappiness in the title. I had low expectations but found that It felt like a cup of tea, a therapy session, a balm, and light in the darkness. I laughed, I cried a lot, and I found validation for my raw emotions and also hope that He is good & kind, even when life is not.
July 14, 2023
This is a good book for Christians who have a nagging feeling that all is not as they have been taught about what their Christian life is to feel like. There may be an underlying feeling of restlessness or a deep sense of not feeling fulfilled or satisfied with their Christian experience.
Opelt opened my eyes to the influence of positive thought on the concept of the emotional prosperity gospel. We may have been told our relationship with Jesus should result in feeling satisfied, fulfilled, blessed and happy. Instead, we have a deep sense of spiritual unrest and may experience shame at our questions and negative feelings.
Opelt identifies the unreasonable expectations from work (totally fulfilled in your calling), parenthood (blessed by the full quiver), body (no physical limits), church (perfect), suffering (always a purpose) and more. She helps us learn to live with unanswered questions, such as with suffering, painful church experiences, and more.
This is a good book for Christians who are curious about their own spiritual discontentment. It is a thoughtful exploration of our expectations on our Christian spiritual experiences and relationship with Jesus. Opelt has given me much to think about, such as being satisfied with my mundane, ordinary and flawed Christian walk.
I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.
Opelt opened my eyes to the influence of positive thought on the concept of the emotional prosperity gospel. We may have been told our relationship with Jesus should result in feeling satisfied, fulfilled, blessed and happy. Instead, we have a deep sense of spiritual unrest and may experience shame at our questions and negative feelings.
Opelt identifies the unreasonable expectations from work (totally fulfilled in your calling), parenthood (blessed by the full quiver), body (no physical limits), church (perfect), suffering (always a purpose) and more. She helps us learn to live with unanswered questions, such as with suffering, painful church experiences, and more.
This is a good book for Christians who are curious about their own spiritual discontentment. It is a thoughtful exploration of our expectations on our Christian spiritual experiences and relationship with Jesus. Opelt has given me much to think about, such as being satisfied with my mundane, ordinary and flawed Christian walk.
I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.
September 22, 2023
Wow. I really love this author. She is heart-rendingly honest. A millennial who was raised in the conservative Christian church and community, Ms. Opelt challenges the “emotional prosperity gospel.”
While many Christians have heard of the prosperity gospel, Ms. Opelt is the first I’ve seen mention the misconception that if you become a Christian, if you have proper faith and follow Christ’s teachings, you will be happy.
We can’t always be happy. Christians also must face difficulties and pain. Ms. Opelt does a beautiful job of exploring where sadness and dissatisfaction fit into the Christian worldview. Wonderful, eye-opening and thought-provoking book. I’ll be pondering this one for a long time.
While many Christians have heard of the prosperity gospel, Ms. Opelt is the first I’ve seen mention the misconception that if you become a Christian, if you have proper faith and follow Christ’s teachings, you will be happy.
We can’t always be happy. Christians also must face difficulties and pain. Ms. Opelt does a beautiful job of exploring where sadness and dissatisfaction fit into the Christian worldview. Wonderful, eye-opening and thought-provoking book. I’ll be pondering this one for a long time.
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December 21, 2023DNF
I think I read at least half of this book so I’m counting it as read, but I let myself not finish this one.
It’s not terrible, it’s just the mix of theology and memoir didn’t work for me. It felt like she had good things to say but it was sometimes pulled around by her experience. In other words, I felt like her theology was shaped by her experiences sometimes, rather than applying her theology to better understand her experiences. I think her thesis is that God is good regardless of whether or not we feel happy. While I agree with this, I felt that in her effort to tie her experiences to her theology and adding in social commentary, she missed a lot of theological richness and symbolism.
I think I read at least half of this book so I’m counting it as read, but I let myself not finish this one.
It’s not terrible, it’s just the mix of theology and memoir didn’t work for me. It felt like she had good things to say but it was sometimes pulled around by her experience. In other words, I felt like her theology was shaped by her experiences sometimes, rather than applying her theology to better understand her experiences. I think her thesis is that God is good regardless of whether or not we feel happy. While I agree with this, I felt that in her effort to tie her experiences to her theology and adding in social commentary, she missed a lot of theological richness and symbolism.
January 12, 2025
This is a really good book about happiness and the myths surrounding the pursuit of it. Opelt looks at saying like the "God-shaped hole" and "work a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life" and holds them up against the Bible to see if they are true. She looks at work, marriage, faith, parenthood, suffering, and more to see what lies we've been sold and what the Bible says about them. Eye-opening in places.
September 5, 2023
When I heard that Amanda Held Opelt was writing a book about unhappiness, I had a kneejerk repulsion--probably because my mind hit on that oft used Evangelical maxim, "God doesn't care about your happiness, He cares about your holiness". I didn't think that Amanda would preach that cliche at me, I knew her writing better than that--but the topic still made me wary. Little did I know, Amanda would be deconstructing and reconstructing that very idea.
Amanda first comments on how we as a culture have forgotten how to be sad. "We don't know how to grieve or be angry," she writes. "We've marginalized unhappiness, removed it from our vocabulary." Immediately, I thought of her first book, which explored how different cultures grieve, and how the Irish concept of "keening" hit me emotionally. I know the power of music, the power of song when it feels like the world is falling apart, and combining emotional expression with songs to mourn and grieve...even now, the idea hits me hard. We have lost so much when we forgot how to mourn.
Another intriguing idea that Amanda explores is the concept of "emotional prosperity gospel"--an idea so insidious, I doubt most churches or Christians are even aware they partake in it. "To this day, Christians have a way of labeling negative emotions as unholy, insinuating that difficult feelings like fear, listlessness, anger, or anxiety are the result of a lack of trust in God." She mentions another oft taught maxim: "God gets ahold of us through the mind and intellect, and Satan gets ahold of us through the heart and emotions." It encourages a distrust of emotions that at its core, is a very sexist teaching.
Amanda's comment that "God, whose Spirit hovered over the waters of chaos, brought order to disorder.", her praise that God is a gardener, a grower of good things--it reminds me that the earliest recorded creation stories about God as a being who destroys a monster of chaos. There is something primally ancient about this fight with chaos that rings true.
Her musings about missing working for a landscaping company echoed my own feelings, when I miss working for a horse camp. Some of my fondest memories were little slices of summer, when keeping my stalls clear, my tack clean, and my horses happy were all that was expected of me. I miss the sting of sweat, how you could lose yourself in the physicality of mucking out a stall.
"Maybe our most powerful act of resistance to the curse is to plant a garden", Amanda wonders, immediately striking back to that Madeleine L'Engle quote about raising her children in the fear of the Cold War: "Planting onions that spring was an act of faith in the future for I was very fearful for our planet.”
Leaping from the "emotional prosperity gospel", which claims that we'll get all of the happy shiny feelings as Christians--Amanda delves into Katelyn Beaty's idea of "the sexual prosperity gospel". This is definitely something I grew up with--the idea that as long as you Do Not Have Sex Before Your Wedding Night, your sex life will be guaranteed perfect. God wants you to have a hot spouse and great sex, but only within the confines of marriage.
Neither prosperity ethic is what is promised in Christianity, despite what Evangelicalism promotes.
Something I love about Amanda's work and something I noticed in her previous book--there are little C.S. Lewis allusions sprinkled all throughout her theology. She refers to herself as a "daughter of Eve". So much of her thoughts on how Christianity was never promised comfort reminds me of that lovely C.S. Lewis quote from his collection of essays "God in the Dock", "I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” Amanda correctly worries, "My fear is that the nature of the Christian subculture has conditioned Jesus followers like me to believe one of the most subtle and insidious lies of the emotional prosperity gospel: the tacit believe that Christianity is above all safe, entertaining, and comfortable." I can't help but consider Lewis reminder that Aslan, the representation of God in his Narnia books, was "not a tame lion". When Susan asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan is "safe", Mr. Beaver scoffs at the question, "of course he isn't safe! But he is good." Amanda reiterates this idea, reminding us that "To follow Christ was not politically or financially advantageous. It was not safe by any stretch of the imagination." She directly quotes Lewis later, "He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only." and "hope is a theological virtue".
I met Rachel Held Evans for the first time in October of 2015. We met at a pub she visited after speaking at a church event downtown and I remember how nervous I felt, how excited I was to meet her, and how she complimented my sweater. But what I remember most was asking her something that has haunted my deconstruction/reconstruction. I asked if she missed Evangelicalism--the feelings of certainty, the high of moral superiority, the complete ironclad faith you had all the answers. She exclaimed, "Yes, every day!" and it was such a comfort. I was reminded of this moment when Amanda comments, "There is a feeling of security that comes with a custom-made Christian subculture". I felt a pang of longing for that sense of security. I will never have it again; I've since learned that my spiritual life will always be in the wilderness. But I miss having a shelter. Amanda chimes in with this, telling us frankly that "There are plenty of days that I miss my certainty. I am deeply homesick for it."
So much of Amanda's points on shame and the insidious concept of LACK truly hit home. The haunting feeling that "Some perfect version of myself and my life awaits me in the future, if only I can find it. If only I shape up." I blame this feeling on everything from my horoscope sign to my enneagram, but Amanda is right. "I cannot assume that the life I want is waiting for me just around the corner...Life is now. I am worn thin because I am offering myself to a million tiny, mundane, beautiful, and wholly necessary demands."
Amanda strikes a careful and necessary balance on conservative Christianity's overglorification of motherhood and capitalism's dismissal of motherhood. "There is absolutely dignity in diaper changing" and the idea of "love as a labor" seems jarring at first--labor does not seem like something we want in our life. But as Amanda reflected, there is beauty and dignity and worship in simple labor--something that connects and grounds.
One of her most intriguing explorations is on "holy hedonism"--the insistence that we savor and experience the world as God intended--with dignity. Her line "Delight in its holiest form is the antithesis of exploitation" as rang in my mind since the moment I finished. There is something gloriously powerful in the idea that God put us on earth to ENJOY it, not to simply endure it. "I've begun to think he saved me so I could savor the world, savor his saving of it."
Amanda speaks of her Evangelical upbringing with grace and kindness--and with a patience that I have yet to cultivate towards my own experience. I wryly wrote in my annotations "Raise your hand if you had this line used on you!" when Amanda remarked upon the "I'm feeling called to pursue you romantically" pickup line very popular in Evangelical adolescent and young adult circles. "I do not begrudge my experience growing up in that subculture" she explains, recognizing the harm Evangelicalism perpetrated against others, but how it blessed her. It's a grace and balance I've yet to be able to strike; I'm still licking my wounds.
I knew Amanda's words about the body would be good--I'm still reeling from her theology of grief and the body in her first book. Her words go beyond simply loving your body, she recognizes the inherent holiness of such an act. "To love a body that is in pain or a body that doesn't meet the world's standards of goodness is an act of defiance. It is an assertion of your own worth before God. I must respect my body--as God does--for its inherent value, not simply for its attractiveness of productivity." What a powerful reminder that our worth goes far beyond productivity. That no matter how broken my body is, it is still valuable.
"Every important movement of reformation was born of a holy indignation", Amanda reminds us that much of the Church's true strength is its ability to die and rise again, over and over and over again.
Unsurprisingly, Amanda's thoughts on suffering are profound. I'm thrust immediately into the image of God's fight against not evil, but chaos. The chaos that interrupts and disrupts our lives, those moments when we scream into the void, "why has this happened?! what was the reason?!" what is the story we can tell ourselves, to find some meaning within the chaos? But there is no reason. Amanda sadly notes, "Whatever gift was gained by the death of my sister, I would trade it in a million times over to have her back." She provides another gentle reminder that God is a griever, a man of sorrows. We have no answer to grief, just the knowledge that God is present and grieving alongside us.
I laugh and cry at Amanda's recollection of her "conversion"--small Rachel warning three-year-old Amanda about the fires of Hell--simply because I recall my oldest brother giving me the same dire warning when I was eight years old. So representative of Rachel and Amanda, respectively.
I can't help smiling when Amanda says, "...my prayer for us is that we would realize that real joy isn't a thing to be chased. Joy is what we get when we are chasing the right thing." simply because I just named my authorial newsletter..."Chasing Joy". The irony delights me but serves as an important reminder--on my wonderful journey chasing the things I love with no apology, just delight--to honor my grief, to delight in the ordinary, and let hope be a practice, not a feeling.
Amanda's book is an incredibly insightful meditation on the oft-touted prosperity gospels in modern Evangelicalism, happiness vs. joy, and what "wrestling for your blessing" truly means. She is careful, thorough, and thoughtful towards every perspective, even those that challenge her worldview. An excellent read that I highly recommend.
Amanda first comments on how we as a culture have forgotten how to be sad. "We don't know how to grieve or be angry," she writes. "We've marginalized unhappiness, removed it from our vocabulary." Immediately, I thought of her first book, which explored how different cultures grieve, and how the Irish concept of "keening" hit me emotionally. I know the power of music, the power of song when it feels like the world is falling apart, and combining emotional expression with songs to mourn and grieve...even now, the idea hits me hard. We have lost so much when we forgot how to mourn.
Another intriguing idea that Amanda explores is the concept of "emotional prosperity gospel"--an idea so insidious, I doubt most churches or Christians are even aware they partake in it. "To this day, Christians have a way of labeling negative emotions as unholy, insinuating that difficult feelings like fear, listlessness, anger, or anxiety are the result of a lack of trust in God." She mentions another oft taught maxim: "God gets ahold of us through the mind and intellect, and Satan gets ahold of us through the heart and emotions." It encourages a distrust of emotions that at its core, is a very sexist teaching.
Amanda's comment that "God, whose Spirit hovered over the waters of chaos, brought order to disorder.", her praise that God is a gardener, a grower of good things--it reminds me that the earliest recorded creation stories about God as a being who destroys a monster of chaos. There is something primally ancient about this fight with chaos that rings true.
Her musings about missing working for a landscaping company echoed my own feelings, when I miss working for a horse camp. Some of my fondest memories were little slices of summer, when keeping my stalls clear, my tack clean, and my horses happy were all that was expected of me. I miss the sting of sweat, how you could lose yourself in the physicality of mucking out a stall.
"Maybe our most powerful act of resistance to the curse is to plant a garden", Amanda wonders, immediately striking back to that Madeleine L'Engle quote about raising her children in the fear of the Cold War: "Planting onions that spring was an act of faith in the future for I was very fearful for our planet.”
Leaping from the "emotional prosperity gospel", which claims that we'll get all of the happy shiny feelings as Christians--Amanda delves into Katelyn Beaty's idea of "the sexual prosperity gospel". This is definitely something I grew up with--the idea that as long as you Do Not Have Sex Before Your Wedding Night, your sex life will be guaranteed perfect. God wants you to have a hot spouse and great sex, but only within the confines of marriage.
Neither prosperity ethic is what is promised in Christianity, despite what Evangelicalism promotes.
Something I love about Amanda's work and something I noticed in her previous book--there are little C.S. Lewis allusions sprinkled all throughout her theology. She refers to herself as a "daughter of Eve". So much of her thoughts on how Christianity was never promised comfort reminds me of that lovely C.S. Lewis quote from his collection of essays "God in the Dock", "I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” Amanda correctly worries, "My fear is that the nature of the Christian subculture has conditioned Jesus followers like me to believe one of the most subtle and insidious lies of the emotional prosperity gospel: the tacit believe that Christianity is above all safe, entertaining, and comfortable." I can't help but consider Lewis reminder that Aslan, the representation of God in his Narnia books, was "not a tame lion". When Susan asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan is "safe", Mr. Beaver scoffs at the question, "of course he isn't safe! But he is good." Amanda reiterates this idea, reminding us that "To follow Christ was not politically or financially advantageous. It was not safe by any stretch of the imagination." She directly quotes Lewis later, "He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only." and "hope is a theological virtue".
I met Rachel Held Evans for the first time in October of 2015. We met at a pub she visited after speaking at a church event downtown and I remember how nervous I felt, how excited I was to meet her, and how she complimented my sweater. But what I remember most was asking her something that has haunted my deconstruction/reconstruction. I asked if she missed Evangelicalism--the feelings of certainty, the high of moral superiority, the complete ironclad faith you had all the answers. She exclaimed, "Yes, every day!" and it was such a comfort. I was reminded of this moment when Amanda comments, "There is a feeling of security that comes with a custom-made Christian subculture". I felt a pang of longing for that sense of security. I will never have it again; I've since learned that my spiritual life will always be in the wilderness. But I miss having a shelter. Amanda chimes in with this, telling us frankly that "There are plenty of days that I miss my certainty. I am deeply homesick for it."
So much of Amanda's points on shame and the insidious concept of LACK truly hit home. The haunting feeling that "Some perfect version of myself and my life awaits me in the future, if only I can find it. If only I shape up." I blame this feeling on everything from my horoscope sign to my enneagram, but Amanda is right. "I cannot assume that the life I want is waiting for me just around the corner...Life is now. I am worn thin because I am offering myself to a million tiny, mundane, beautiful, and wholly necessary demands."
Amanda strikes a careful and necessary balance on conservative Christianity's overglorification of motherhood and capitalism's dismissal of motherhood. "There is absolutely dignity in diaper changing" and the idea of "love as a labor" seems jarring at first--labor does not seem like something we want in our life. But as Amanda reflected, there is beauty and dignity and worship in simple labor--something that connects and grounds.
One of her most intriguing explorations is on "holy hedonism"--the insistence that we savor and experience the world as God intended--with dignity. Her line "Delight in its holiest form is the antithesis of exploitation" as rang in my mind since the moment I finished. There is something gloriously powerful in the idea that God put us on earth to ENJOY it, not to simply endure it. "I've begun to think he saved me so I could savor the world, savor his saving of it."
Amanda speaks of her Evangelical upbringing with grace and kindness--and with a patience that I have yet to cultivate towards my own experience. I wryly wrote in my annotations "Raise your hand if you had this line used on you!" when Amanda remarked upon the "I'm feeling called to pursue you romantically" pickup line very popular in Evangelical adolescent and young adult circles. "I do not begrudge my experience growing up in that subculture" she explains, recognizing the harm Evangelicalism perpetrated against others, but how it blessed her. It's a grace and balance I've yet to be able to strike; I'm still licking my wounds.
I knew Amanda's words about the body would be good--I'm still reeling from her theology of grief and the body in her first book. Her words go beyond simply loving your body, she recognizes the inherent holiness of such an act. "To love a body that is in pain or a body that doesn't meet the world's standards of goodness is an act of defiance. It is an assertion of your own worth before God. I must respect my body--as God does--for its inherent value, not simply for its attractiveness of productivity." What a powerful reminder that our worth goes far beyond productivity. That no matter how broken my body is, it is still valuable.
"Every important movement of reformation was born of a holy indignation", Amanda reminds us that much of the Church's true strength is its ability to die and rise again, over and over and over again.
Unsurprisingly, Amanda's thoughts on suffering are profound. I'm thrust immediately into the image of God's fight against not evil, but chaos. The chaos that interrupts and disrupts our lives, those moments when we scream into the void, "why has this happened?! what was the reason?!" what is the story we can tell ourselves, to find some meaning within the chaos? But there is no reason. Amanda sadly notes, "Whatever gift was gained by the death of my sister, I would trade it in a million times over to have her back." She provides another gentle reminder that God is a griever, a man of sorrows. We have no answer to grief, just the knowledge that God is present and grieving alongside us.
I laugh and cry at Amanda's recollection of her "conversion"--small Rachel warning three-year-old Amanda about the fires of Hell--simply because I recall my oldest brother giving me the same dire warning when I was eight years old. So representative of Rachel and Amanda, respectively.
I can't help smiling when Amanda says, "...my prayer for us is that we would realize that real joy isn't a thing to be chased. Joy is what we get when we are chasing the right thing." simply because I just named my authorial newsletter..."Chasing Joy". The irony delights me but serves as an important reminder--on my wonderful journey chasing the things I love with no apology, just delight--to honor my grief, to delight in the ordinary, and let hope be a practice, not a feeling.
Amanda's book is an incredibly insightful meditation on the oft-touted prosperity gospels in modern Evangelicalism, happiness vs. joy, and what "wrestling for your blessing" truly means. She is careful, thorough, and thoughtful towards every perspective, even those that challenge her worldview. An excellent read that I highly recommend.
October 7, 2025
This may be my favorite read of the year?
I bought this book because I thought I needed it, and though it took me several months to actually read it, it is clear: I really needed this read.
It is written, it seems, with the writer’s whole heart in it. You can tell she wrestled long and deep with this work. She went through a journey herself to produce a book with such wisdom and insight. It is well written: clear, concise, and poetic.
This book investigates the dangers of the emotional prosperity gospel. “Following God, obeying him and being blessed by Him will make me FEEL happy.” It asks, “do you feel negative emotions? And does that sometimes scare you?” and then explains gently and thoroughly, “That’s ok. You don’t need to be afraid. Don’t run from your negative feelings. You are allowed to feel deep and uncomfortable things. You feel negative things because this is often a negative world. There is nothing wrong with you.” And then she invites you to look directly at those negative feelings. Acknowledge them. Simply let them exist. She argues that there is power in letting ourselves feel the hard emotions without second guessing, that God Himself invites us to feel precisely how our life season has provoked us to feel. He is not afraid of our feelings, and we shouldn’t be either.
Opelt walks through several realms of life that could be the source of conflicting emotions for pretty much anyone. Work. Marriage. Parenthood (and infertility). Calling. Community. Body. Sanctuary (church). Suffering. Sanctification. Each realm she discusses (each has its own chapter in the book) is thoroughly addressed and there is always something in each chapter that surprised me, and sometimes her entire approach to the discussion surprised me.
There are so many insights that help reframe the ordinary elements of life that we can often find ourselves tangled up in. She addresses soundbites of “life wisdom” that have oversimplified life and one’s understanding of it and discusses words that have blurred meanings throughout time. Blessed and happy—are they synonymous?
She communicates clearly and kindly, encouraging the reader out of their comfort zone and inviting them into the wild terrain of their life and heart.
I found it be a really impactful read and just a good book to sit in. I will definitely be recommending (and maybe gifting) this book to many.
I bought this book because I thought I needed it, and though it took me several months to actually read it, it is clear: I really needed this read.
It is written, it seems, with the writer’s whole heart in it. You can tell she wrestled long and deep with this work. She went through a journey herself to produce a book with such wisdom and insight. It is well written: clear, concise, and poetic.
This book investigates the dangers of the emotional prosperity gospel. “Following God, obeying him and being blessed by Him will make me FEEL happy.” It asks, “do you feel negative emotions? And does that sometimes scare you?” and then explains gently and thoroughly, “That’s ok. You don’t need to be afraid. Don’t run from your negative feelings. You are allowed to feel deep and uncomfortable things. You feel negative things because this is often a negative world. There is nothing wrong with you.” And then she invites you to look directly at those negative feelings. Acknowledge them. Simply let them exist. She argues that there is power in letting ourselves feel the hard emotions without second guessing, that God Himself invites us to feel precisely how our life season has provoked us to feel. He is not afraid of our feelings, and we shouldn’t be either.
Opelt walks through several realms of life that could be the source of conflicting emotions for pretty much anyone. Work. Marriage. Parenthood (and infertility). Calling. Community. Body. Sanctuary (church). Suffering. Sanctification. Each realm she discusses (each has its own chapter in the book) is thoroughly addressed and there is always something in each chapter that surprised me, and sometimes her entire approach to the discussion surprised me.
There are so many insights that help reframe the ordinary elements of life that we can often find ourselves tangled up in. She addresses soundbites of “life wisdom” that have oversimplified life and one’s understanding of it and discusses words that have blurred meanings throughout time. Blessed and happy—are they synonymous?
She communicates clearly and kindly, encouraging the reader out of their comfort zone and inviting them into the wild terrain of their life and heart.
I found it be a really impactful read and just a good book to sit in. I will definitely be recommending (and maybe gifting) this book to many.
June 15, 2024
Given the title of this book, the fact that I didn’t really enjoy it may be a bit ironic. She had some good points by the time I made my way through most of the book, but I had a hard time liking her and her writing for some reason. It may be her repetitive use of buzz words like “privilege” and “fragility”, which I’m just burned out from after the past few years. She also came off very negative in her sarcasm and sense of humor, especially in the beginning of the book, which I do realize was likely intentional for the flow and growth of her story. Still, the lecturing voice felt tiresome and I grew, well, tired of it. I did appreciate the overall message of the book, however, but also felt the main points of the work were easily summarized in her afterword. 3.5 stars, 4 officially because I’m generous in my ratings.
February 5, 2024
"We are a culture that has forgotten how to be sad. We don't know how to grieve or be angry...Instead, we have normalized peace, prosperity, and positivity."
Most Christians have heard of the prosperity gospel, and know to stay away from it. But how many have realized there is also an emotional prosperity gospel? That is what this book touches on. Each chapter deals with a myth of the emotional prosperity gospel; things such as "Find a job you love, and you'll be happy.", "Marry the love of your life and all your relational challenges will disappear.", and "You must thrive in your suffering."
Life is hard. We will not be happy all of the time, no matter what myth of the emotional prosperity gospel we follow. And that is okay. Maybe sometimes our unhappiness can actually be holy.
There were multiple things I agreed with in this book, and multiple things I didn't, but it definitely got me thinking, and that is a good thing!
Most Christians have heard of the prosperity gospel, and know to stay away from it. But how many have realized there is also an emotional prosperity gospel? That is what this book touches on. Each chapter deals with a myth of the emotional prosperity gospel; things such as "Find a job you love, and you'll be happy.", "Marry the love of your life and all your relational challenges will disappear.", and "You must thrive in your suffering."
Life is hard. We will not be happy all of the time, no matter what myth of the emotional prosperity gospel we follow. And that is okay. Maybe sometimes our unhappiness can actually be holy.
There were multiple things I agreed with in this book, and multiple things I didn't, but it definitely got me thinking, and that is a good thing!
March 18, 2024
This is legit one of the best books about our modern world’s (secular and Christian) view on emotional health. The way Amanda attacks these nine concepts of our life and lays it out in how we’ve been lied to in some parts as Christians within our culture is phenomenal. The emotional prosperity gospel!
Wow. Just a great read and loved the style. Really in depth but also just enough to be an enjoyable read. Thanks so much for this blessing of a book!
If you’re wanting to read a book on how to love God through the times He feels as if He is missing; read this!
Wow. Just a great read and loved the style. Really in depth but also just enough to be an enjoyable read. Thanks so much for this blessing of a book!
If you’re wanting to read a book on how to love God through the times He feels as if He is missing; read this!
September 5, 2024
This book articulated a lot of thoughts I’ve had for a long time about what happiness and blessedness truly looks like in the life of a believer.
The author calls it the “emotional prosperity gospel” that tells us that we as believers deserve perfect marriages, churches, communities, and children, when in reality none of that is promised.
The book was well researched and actually had me looking at her cited sources multiple times.
There were points that felt rambly and repetitive, especially the afterword.
The author calls it the “emotional prosperity gospel” that tells us that we as believers deserve perfect marriages, churches, communities, and children, when in reality none of that is promised.
The book was well researched and actually had me looking at her cited sources multiple times.
There were points that felt rambly and repetitive, especially the afterword.
March 12, 2024
Parts of the book, particularly the Sanctification chapter (and, oddly, the Afterword), helped me give word and thought to a frustration about Christians and prosperity I’d previously been unable to describe.
May 27, 2024
5 stars because while the first two sections were good, section 3 was really good.
November 24, 2024
Sometimes you pick up a book not expecting much (just thinking it’ll be just another Christian non-fiction title), but this book was just great. I dipped in and out of this book over a few months — it’s a thoughtful book, best read slowly and chewed on.
(And perhaps quite importantly, it gave me language for the “emotional prosperity gospel” that appears in other places. A mental handle for this thing I keep coming across.)
(And perhaps quite importantly, it gave me language for the “emotional prosperity gospel” that appears in other places. A mental handle for this thing I keep coming across.)
March 25, 2024
I'd give this book 10 stars if I could.
So timely and relatable.
So timely and relatable.
August 17, 2023
I am so deeply moved by this book.
This was a brave book for Amanda Held Opelt to write on many levels.
I purchased it because we know and love Amanda and have always known her to be a deep thinker and a truth teller, wise beyond her years even as a student in our youth ministry (another lifetime ago).
I did not expect to be challenged, encouraged, disrupted and seen.
I hesitated to step into the writings of grief and unhappiness, but the truth is, I’m left with so much hope. The authenticity of this book challenges the popular prosperity gospel and writings, but does so without scoffing or belittling which I can hardly stomach any longer.
Gentle and bold is not only how I would describe her writing, but it’s how I would describe Amanda as a person.
This was a brave book for Amanda Held Opelt to write on many levels.
I purchased it because we know and love Amanda and have always known her to be a deep thinker and a truth teller, wise beyond her years even as a student in our youth ministry (another lifetime ago).
I did not expect to be challenged, encouraged, disrupted and seen.
I hesitated to step into the writings of grief and unhappiness, but the truth is, I’m left with so much hope. The authenticity of this book challenges the popular prosperity gospel and writings, but does so without scoffing or belittling which I can hardly stomach any longer.
Gentle and bold is not only how I would describe her writing, but it’s how I would describe Amanda as a person.
June 27, 2024
The first time I read this book, I listened to it via audiobook, and the second time I actually read a physical copy. I really appreciate the nuggets of wisdom that this author has. There are moments of perspective that I think will stick with me for a long time. However, as our Book Club agreed, there is something stylistically and tonally that leaves something to be desired. It is a very personal book and I think that if it hits you in the right way, you will enjoy it, and if it doesn’t, then you won’t. But certainly content worth mulling over and praying over.
December 13, 2023
This book appealed to me - getting beyond the often-superficial messages of Christianity that so often seem inadequate to life. But for where I’m at, and where I’d direct others if this book sounds appealing, You Are Not Your Own is a better place to start.
October 16, 2023
Most Christians are familiar with the prosperity gospel - the false theology that says if you're giving and doing all the right things God will bless you financially, physically, etc. While that is mostly known as a false theology, Opelt makes the case that many American Christians still believe in what she calls the "emotional prosperity gospel." This basic premise is that once you're a Christian you'll be happy all the time and won't struggle emotionally or mentally. Opelt argues that this is equally a false theology or worldview. She discusses 9 areas of life that we often apply the "emotional prosperity gospel" to in our lives and how we can reimagine these areas through a more correct godly lens. The nine areas are - work, marriage, parenthood, calling, community, body, sanctuary, suffering, and sanctification. Opelt does a great job of exploring the unfortunately common Christian viewpoint that if you're struggling in your life you aren't right with God and just how damaging that view can be. I also didn't realize until I was almost halfway through the book that Opelt is the sister of Rachel Held Evans. I was already interested in this book, but that made me even more interested in what she had to say. This book was really well done and an important read for any Christian.
Some quotes I liked:
"God plants the garden, and humankind tends and keeps the garden. This was his plan from the beginning and part of the goodness of creation. Gardening is an occupation fit for God himself and is given as an honorable inheritance for his children. Work was never meant to be a curse, punishment, or the drudgery of the lowly. Work is a holy responsibility." (p. 5)
"Work was becoming a means to a material end, not simply a means of survival or the demand of a king or lord. Eighteenth-century economist James Steuart noted that in former times, 'men were...forced to labour because they were slaves to others; men are now forced to labour because they are slaves to their own wants.'" (p. 8)
"To work is to be human in the Garden of Eden. To be frustrated by work is to be human in the aftermath of the fall." (p. 21)
"[Katelyn] Beaty observes that the evangelical church's teaching on sexuality and purity has created many false expectations for young people. Christian teenagers growing up in the '90s like me were inundated with the True Love Waits movement, which urged kids to remain sexually pure until their wedding night. This movement, Beaty posits, 'holds that God will reward premarital chastity with a good Christian spouse, great sex, and perpetual marital fulfillment,' Beaty calls this 'the sexual prosperity gospel.'" (p. 32)
"The notion that a woman's greatest calling was to bear children has been around since long before the days of Martin Luther, but the concept has experienced a strong revival in the Church in the wake of the feminist movement of the 1950s and '60s. The emerging secular culture was telling women that they should shake off the shackles of motherhood and housekeeping and pursue their real potential by climbing the corporate ladder and chasing their professional dreams. In response, faith leaders set out to convince women that there was, in fact, dignity in diaper changing. We were to glory in our role as reproducers. To serve as a mother was to be faithful to God's unique design. It was the highest feminine aspiration, the surest path to true happiness." (p. 46)
"And the good Christian wife is one who stays home with her children. If she was uninterested in the tasks of homemaking, then it was a sign that she lacked humility and servanthood. If she was drawn to work outside the home, then she was a usurper, hungry for power or money or recognition. Staying home with children may very well be a good and wise choice for many women. But the idea that godly womanhood is inextricably linked to domesticity is more of a middle-class, Victorian-era construct than a biblical mandate. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the home was the center of industry for both men and women." (p. 51-52)
"My fear is that the nature of the Christian subculture has conditioned Jesus followers like me to believe one of the most subtle and insidious lies of the emotional prosperity gospel: the tacit belief that Christianity is above all safe, entertaining, and comfortable. It is the perception of Christian community as politically advantageous, socially beneficial, and personally profitable. The complicated truth is that Christianity has made some people very, very wealthy and very, very powerful. And that wealth and power are often seen as assets rather than liabilities." (p. 104)
Some quotes I liked:
"God plants the garden, and humankind tends and keeps the garden. This was his plan from the beginning and part of the goodness of creation. Gardening is an occupation fit for God himself and is given as an honorable inheritance for his children. Work was never meant to be a curse, punishment, or the drudgery of the lowly. Work is a holy responsibility." (p. 5)
"Work was becoming a means to a material end, not simply a means of survival or the demand of a king or lord. Eighteenth-century economist James Steuart noted that in former times, 'men were...forced to labour because they were slaves to others; men are now forced to labour because they are slaves to their own wants.'" (p. 8)
"To work is to be human in the Garden of Eden. To be frustrated by work is to be human in the aftermath of the fall." (p. 21)
"[Katelyn] Beaty observes that the evangelical church's teaching on sexuality and purity has created many false expectations for young people. Christian teenagers growing up in the '90s like me were inundated with the True Love Waits movement, which urged kids to remain sexually pure until their wedding night. This movement, Beaty posits, 'holds that God will reward premarital chastity with a good Christian spouse, great sex, and perpetual marital fulfillment,' Beaty calls this 'the sexual prosperity gospel.'" (p. 32)
"The notion that a woman's greatest calling was to bear children has been around since long before the days of Martin Luther, but the concept has experienced a strong revival in the Church in the wake of the feminist movement of the 1950s and '60s. The emerging secular culture was telling women that they should shake off the shackles of motherhood and housekeeping and pursue their real potential by climbing the corporate ladder and chasing their professional dreams. In response, faith leaders set out to convince women that there was, in fact, dignity in diaper changing. We were to glory in our role as reproducers. To serve as a mother was to be faithful to God's unique design. It was the highest feminine aspiration, the surest path to true happiness." (p. 46)
"And the good Christian wife is one who stays home with her children. If she was uninterested in the tasks of homemaking, then it was a sign that she lacked humility and servanthood. If she was drawn to work outside the home, then she was a usurper, hungry for power or money or recognition. Staying home with children may very well be a good and wise choice for many women. But the idea that godly womanhood is inextricably linked to domesticity is more of a middle-class, Victorian-era construct than a biblical mandate. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the home was the center of industry for both men and women." (p. 51-52)
"My fear is that the nature of the Christian subculture has conditioned Jesus followers like me to believe one of the most subtle and insidious lies of the emotional prosperity gospel: the tacit belief that Christianity is above all safe, entertaining, and comfortable. It is the perception of Christian community as politically advantageous, socially beneficial, and personally profitable. The complicated truth is that Christianity has made some people very, very wealthy and very, very powerful. And that wealth and power are often seen as assets rather than liabilities." (p. 104)
July 7, 2023
This book has an unusual and interesting title and caught my attention quickly. It reveals a distinctive way to approach painful emotions, give ourselves the go-ahead for feeling them, and finding a gentle purpose in our experiences.
While reading Holy Unhappiness a Scripture passage kept sliding into my mind. Romans 5:2-5:
This reminds us that our pain, difficulties, and obstacles in life might be just the things that bring us closer to God and to our purpose.
If you are experiencing depression, sadness, grief, sorrow, or pain—or know someone who is, this eye-opening, inspiring, and healing book is the perfect gift for them.
First Line: God is a gardener.
Genre: Christian Spiritual Growth
Author: Amanda Held Opelt
Page Count: 272
#CoverLoverBookReview received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions are 100% mine.
While reading Holy Unhappiness a Scripture passage kept sliding into my mind. Romans 5:2-5:
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
This reminds us that our pain, difficulties, and obstacles in life might be just the things that bring us closer to God and to our purpose.
If you are experiencing depression, sadness, grief, sorrow, or pain—or know someone who is, this eye-opening, inspiring, and healing book is the perfect gift for them.
First Line: God is a gardener.
Genre: Christian Spiritual Growth
Author: Amanda Held Opelt
Page Count: 272
#CoverLoverBookReview received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions are 100% mine.
May 14, 2024
My older daughter had bought me HOLY UNHAPPINESS for Christmas after I'd pointed out a couple items in our bookstore, and I lucked out by talking it up with our small group so that it was chosen as our spring read.
Amanda Held Opelt lays out the foundation that while many Christians might easily object to the prosperity gospel, we often buy into an emotional prosperity gospel, subconsciously believing that if we live and act in the "right" ways, all will go well for us. She explores this through the lens of parenthood, work, marriage, community, suffering, and more, with a blessing closing out each section.
This was a welcome gift (in all the meanings of the word), being the perfect book for me to read with loved ones in a time of uncertainty. Certain phrases have entered into regular repetition in our home (exhaustion is not a sign of failure, the work can have value even if the ground is cursed, etc) as these mantras try to ground us.
Opelt is around my age and has faced her own losses keenly, so I knew I could trust her words and welcome her perspective. I'm grateful that my friends found this to be true for them as well.
Amanda Held Opelt lays out the foundation that while many Christians might easily object to the prosperity gospel, we often buy into an emotional prosperity gospel, subconsciously believing that if we live and act in the "right" ways, all will go well for us. She explores this through the lens of parenthood, work, marriage, community, suffering, and more, with a blessing closing out each section.
This was a welcome gift (in all the meanings of the word), being the perfect book for me to read with loved ones in a time of uncertainty. Certain phrases have entered into regular repetition in our home (exhaustion is not a sign of failure, the work can have value even if the ground is cursed, etc) as these mantras try to ground us.
Opelt is around my age and has faced her own losses keenly, so I knew I could trust her words and welcome her perspective. I'm grateful that my friends found this to be true for them as well.
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