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Book Review: Enemies of the Heart by Andy Stanley

by Christopher Scott

September 23, 2012

@ChristopherLS

Andy is a fantastic teacher and writer. I read his books and listen to his talks when I can. I almost always find them to be very practical and applicable to my work situations and life.

Enemies of the Heart is a great book. Basically, Stanley shares that there are four distinct enemies of the heart. Those four enemies of the heart are:

1. Guilt
2. Anger
3. Greed
4. Jealousy

The intriguing element of these four enemies of the heart is that they can lurk around us and our world even when we do not know it. These enemies start to take root inside of our heart and our attitude and we might not even know it. Other people might not even know it either. However, when these enemies start to surface, they often surprise us and others because they are not normal for how we act. In fact, others might even say things like, "You weren't yourself today" or "I can't believe you did that." Those are statements which show we have that enemy developing inside of us, and from time to time, that enemy comes out.

Thankfully, Stanley also offers four simple things you can do to battle that enemy of the heart you might struggle with.

For example, one of the enemies I struggle with is jealousy. When I see someone doing great work, getting credit for it, achieving results, and making money, I get jealous. It is something I have struggled with ever since I was a young kid playing golf in my teenage years when I would see other kids winning tournaments and taking home trophies while I struggled to finish in the top ten of the tournament.

For someone who struggles with jealousy, Stanley suggests you actively and publicly praise the person (or organization) in which you feel jealous of. Now, when I see someone I know who is achieving success and I feel jealous, I do my best to praise and support him.

In case you are interested, the guys and gals at Catalyst posted an except of the book here.

Question: Which one of these enemies do you struggle with and what are you doing to combat it?