Tyndale Book Review: Restore break out of your past and into God's future

I was intrigued by this book.  Restore is my word for 2018, so it seemed like it might be a good fit for my book reviews, and expose me to a different style of book.  I wasn't disappointed.  

The book helps you figure out what is going on in your life that has you 'stuck' and keeps you from moving beyond your past, healing your hurts, and breaking bad habits.  As sinners, we all face one or more of these issues.  I really appreciated the free extras with email and a pdf of questions that come along with your reading.  


Here's what the publisher tells you about the book:
What should we do when we feel stuck in life?
You know how it feels. There’s a hurt in your past that is hard to get beyond. There’s a bad habit that’s difficult to break. There’s a setback that is just too tough to overcome.

We all have our own unique situations in which we feel “stuck.” Americans’ favorite suggestions for how to fix our lives—self-help programs, self-esteem techniques, or simple willpower—leave many of us ceaselessly spinning our wheels and feeling just as “stuck” as ever. Vince Antonucci knows what this feels like, and he knows many who have struggled to fix their lives with these dead-end methods. He struggled to get past the pain of a neglectful and angry father. It wasn’t until Vince decided to go through a recovery and rehab course, focused on God, that he learned ways to break free of that hurt and to live in God’s future.

Today, when someone walks through the doors of Vince’s innovative church, located just off the Las Vegas Strip, he offers a Restore class as one of three core classes that every member takes. He knows how important it is to learn to break free of these old hurts and bad habits. The essence of that popular class is contained in this book.

Move past your past, heal your hurts, and break your bad habits.
Want to read the first chapter?  Here's a link to a pdf.... so you can see for yourself!

Here is my review:

Things I appreciated:

• Book Format:  Humor integrated  in Top Ten Lists, Short Daily Readings that have bold headings to keep you focused, Book is divided into the steps take, with the online community and email video/pdf support.
• Balance of stories from the authors life, other lives, and models from the Bible of how people lived.
• Application steps to take, so you are forced to start the process of real healing with simple questions and prompts, which make it feel easy to do.  
• Way that you are forced to think, process, and integrate in the steps and leave your ways and step into God's ways. 
• Scriptural connections.  The references are all in the back. 

I wanted the full experience so I signed up for the daily emails with videos and pdfs.  These daily pdfs had more questions, concept, and ways to think/process your thoughts, as well as a song  for the theme. Many are like the voice in your head, trying to fight doing what you know you need to do, compelling! (you do have to go search for the song, it's not directly linked.)  

Personally I have not had the time while reviewing the book to 'follow' all the directions at one time.  I really like the idea of choosing a month and going through the videos, pdfs, and days one at a time.  The ones that I had more time to process I did find very valuable and helpful.  Really we are looking at our identity in Christ, our grasp of Who God is, His attributes/identity, and how He directs us, but we have to keep our eyes focused on His plan, not ours.  When problems or stress arises, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to remind us who we are in Him, and to guide us and direct us.   This book is very practical and will lead you to search your soul and overcome whatever may have you 'stuck' in your life.  Just commit the time to it so that you can grow!  

 I joined the Facebook Group called:  The Restore Community  the daily videos are there, and some discussion, but not a specific group studying together now.  (there was an original group that went through the 30 days together.) 

I am not a traditional video/youtube person.  But Vince Antonucci's videos are threeish minutes, he's connecting, honest, and they are quick concepts brought to life and he helps me process the book's concepts, and this book is not just for those addicts who need a twelve step program, I'm sure it would help them. But this book teaches many spiritual lessons about forgiveness, daily living, focus, setting our eyes on the Lord, judgement, love poured out, .... 

Here's a link to the author's page. Thank you Tyndale House Publishers for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book.