Book Review: Runaway Emotions

Worry, frustration, anger, loneliness: as believers in Christ we know that when we feel these negative emotions something is wrong. In Runaway Emotions, Jeff Schreve invites us to consider that we should not deny, hide, or ignore these emotions, but use them to find out how God is speaking to us.  In writing about negative emotions, Schreve uses the analogy of the smoke detector: its alarm goes off long before we experience the full force of the blaze to let us know that there's a fire somewhere that needs to be addressed. 

Runaway Emotions addresses 8 alarm emotions: embarrassment, loneliness, frustration, worry, anger, guilt, discontentment, and depression. Schreve outlines the message contained in each emotion, then discusses how God uses these feelings to let us know what God given desires in our life are out of balance.  The bulk of each chapter equips readers with Scripture and actions useful for bringing our lives back into balance.

So much of the information here is not new; even Schreve lets readers know that the fundamentals in this book came from seminary lectures by Dr. Wayne McDill. However, Schreve's writing and organization of the topics make this book a valuable, practical tool that I've found myself referring to over and over again.  Schreve's style is such that he says what he needs to say, then moves on, making this a content rich book that you'll want to read and reread with highlighter in hand. I found that, once I read the introduction, I could skip around to the chapters that I needed most then come back to the rest.  Runaway Emotions was not only useful for self-understanding, but also for understanding others who exhibit these alarming feelings.

Very highly recommended.

I received a copy of this book from Thomas Nelson's Booksneeze program in return for an honest review.