What Keeps You Up At Night
by Pete Wilson

Learning to trust God–His ways and His timing.  Sounds easy.  We all know it’s not.  Pete Wilson’s new book, What Keeps You At Night, is about overcoming paralyzing fear, doubts, and insecurities and moving forward, just taking that next step of obedience and trusting God with the results. 

Something about the way Pete Wilson writes makes it easy to connect with him.  Maybe it’s his storytelling, his examples, his easy-to-read style; I always enjoy his books.  I found myself highlighting and underlining throughout this one.  It was encouraging without being Pollyana-style blindly optimistic.  He faced hard truths—like we will have trouble in this world, and we will have to wait, and there will be uncertainty, and sometimes we will be rejected or disappointed.  But God.  That’s really what it all comes down to.  Yes, life can be tough, But God.

My favorite quote in the book is housed in his chapter on embracing uncertainty.  He writes, “We think the more spiritually mature we are the more clarity we should have. The fact is, the more spiritually mature we are the less clarity we need.”  This one sentence nailed it for me.  I find that God asks me more and more to live with unknowns or take steps of faith without neon sign confirmation.  It’s because He’s asking me to trust HIM and Him alone more and more.

This book includes key ideas and reflection questions at the end of each chapter, as well as an action point of some kind called “Your Next Step.”  It’s these next steps that I loved the most.  Some of the ‘assignments’ he gave were unique and could really prod you into growing spiritually and stepping out in faith.  In one chapter, he asks you to do something you are afraid of this week: Like strike up a conversation with a stranger if you’re shy or go a day without social media if you are addicted to it or speak up about some injustice that you see.  On the surface, none of these seemed like life-changing, faith-altering, huge faith-steps.  And yet, how often do we let the smallest fears or bad habits turn into strongholds that absolutely keep us from obeying God and His call in our lives?  Too often we get hung up on looking for the grand vision for our lives or we are overwhelmed by that one giant of opposition and really God is just asking us to take that next right step.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”