Holy Unhappiness
God, Goodness, and the Myth of the Blessed Life
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Narrated by:
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Amanda Held Opelt
About this listen
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.
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Story
If you're tired of hearing the watered-down Christian teaching and hungry for a deeper spiritual life - one that gives real answers to your hardest questions - Stop Calling Me Beautiful teaches you how. Jesus doesn't offer a powerless salvation. He makes your brokenness part of his whole redemption story - if you allow him to. Don't settle for a feel-good faith. If you want victory over insecurity, fear, shame, and the circumstances you are facing, it's time to embrace Jesus. All of him.
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not what I expected, in a good way!!
- By Kristin on 09-03-20
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Wrestling with God
- Finding Hope and Meaning in Our Daily Struggles to Be Human
- By: Ronald Rolheiser
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In Wrestling with God, Ronald Rolheiser offers a steady and inspiring voice to help us avow and understand our faith in a world where nothing seems solid or permanent. Drawing from his own life experience, as well as a storehouse of literary, psychological, and theological insights, the beloved author of Sacred Fire examines the fears and doubts that challenge us. It is in these struggles to find meaning, that Rolheiser lays out a path for faith in a world struggling to find faith, but perhaps more important, he helps us find our own rhythm within which to walk that path.
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Still Wrestling
- By Joseph B Oberting on 10-13-20
By: Ronald Rolheiser
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Befriend
- Create Belonging in an Age of Judgment, Isolation, and Fear
- By: Scott Sauls
- Narrated by: Dean Gallagher
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Is real friendship too risky? We live in a world where real friendship is hard to find. Suspicious of others and insecure about ourselves, we retreat into the safety of our small, self-made digital worlds. Tragically, even the church can become a place that reinforces this isolation. Jesus models a much richer vision of friendship. Scott Sauls, pastor and teacher, invites you to see the breadth of Christ's love in this audiobook, Befriend.
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Great post election therapy.
- By Manoli on 12-20-16
By: Scott Sauls
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Born Again This Way
- Coming Out, Coming to Faith, and What Comes Next
- By: Rachel Gilson
- Narrated by: Rachel Gilson
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In this powerful and personal book, author Rachel Gilson describes her own unexpected journey of coming out and coming to faith... and what came next. As she does so, she addresses many of the questions that Christians living with same-sex attraction are wrestling with: Am I consigned to a life of loneliness? How do I navigate my friendships? Will my desires ever change? Is there some greater purpose to all this?
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BEST of the MANY I’ve read about SSA
- By Anonymous User on 02-12-21
By: Rachel Gilson
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The Holy Longing
- The Search for a Christian Spirituality
- By: Ronald Rolheiser
- Narrated by: Bill Loran
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Listeners will be fully engaged in a unique and altogether fascinating discussion of Christian spirituality. Rolheiser seeks to reconcile the rift between a smorgasbord of spiritual voices and an authentic Christian discipleship by the use of anecdotes, personal examples and a wide range of literary and cultural references. His starting point is the desire within us that longs irresistibly for fulfillment.
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Great content
- By Allison Winter on 11-07-23
By: Ronald Rolheiser
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The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus
- By: Brennan Manning
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Is God a wrathful judge? A gentle healer? A father? Brother? Friend? In The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, Brennan Manning brings you to a deeper understanding of the true nature of God. Through poignant and unforgettable stories and challenging observations, Manning helps you stretch your mind and reject simplistic explanations of who God really is.
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Beautiful, Poetic, Convincing
- By Elizabeth Doonan on 12-03-22
By: Brennan Manning
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On Birth
- How to Find God, Book 1
- By: Timothy Keller
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Significant events such as birth, marriage, and death are milestones in our lives in which we experience our greatest happiness and our deepest grief. And so it is profoundly important to understand how to approach and experience these occasions with grace, endurance, and joy. In On Birth, Timothy Keller - theologian and best-selling author - helps us understand both physical and spiritual birth, as well as how baptism connects the two. Keller draws on 45 years as a pastor and a parent to consider what it means to receive a new birth as well as to be reborn.
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Excellent! For the seeker & disciple of Jesus.
- By K. Doug Allen on 03-03-20
By: Timothy Keller
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Things Worth Dying For
- Thoughts on a Life Worth Living
- By: Charles J. Chaput
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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With a balance of wisdom, candor, and scholarly rigor, the beloved archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput, traces the human experience from ancient times to today to find threads of connection in our yearning for God, love, honor, beauty, truth, and immortality. He looks at our modern appetite for consumption and individualism and offers a penetrating analysis of how we got here and how we can look to our roots and our faith to find purpose each day amid the noise of competing desires.
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Low score for modernism
- By Joey on 05-17-21
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Jesus Feminist
- An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women
- By: Sarah Bessey
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In Jesus Feminist, Bessey shares her spiritual journey, which ranges from growing up in a post–gender-debate home to learning about the worldwide struggles of women and the obstacles even a well-meaning church can pose. Through disarmingly intimate storytelling, she tells how she grew to understand the story of God and the vastness of his work through women.
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Love the book; HATE the reader.
- By bsamps on 01-27-17
By: Sarah Bessey
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You Can Trust God to Write Your Story
- Embracing the Mysteries of Providence
- By: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Robert D. Wolgemuth
- Narrated by: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Robert D. Wolgemuth
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In their first book together, best-selling authors Robert and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth share biblical and modern-day stories of God’s providence at work, including their own story of finding love and marrying - the first time for Nancy at age 57 and the second time for Robert, a widower. Each story will inspire you as you watch God redeem impossible situations in the unlikeliest ways. Learn to see His hand in your life, and you'll never be the same.
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A Wonderful, Scripturally Founded, Encouragement!
- By Jennifer Harvey on 10-07-19
By: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, and others
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The Second Mountain
- How People Move from the Prison of Self to the Joy of Commitment
- By: David Brooks
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Author David Brooks explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity and beauty of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose.
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Pursue meaning, reject hyper-individualism
- By Adam Shields on 05-07-19
By: David Brooks
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To Be Told
- God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future
- By: Dan B. Allender PhD
- Narrated by: William Sarris
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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God wants to reveal himself through your story. Discover how he has written your life so far and how he is leading you into the rest of your story. Everyone wants clearer guidance from God on what to do with their future. In this insightful book, therapist and Professor Dan Allender shows you how to listen to the stories of your life and identify the themes that God has written there.
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Thought Provoking and Inspiring
- By michelle deuz on 04-10-21
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A Grace Disguised Revised and Expanded
- How the Soul Grows Through Loss
- By: Jerry L. Sittser
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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With vulnerability and honesty, Jerry Sittser walks through his own grief and loss to show that new life is possible - one marked by spiritual depth, joy, compassion, and a deeper appreciation of simple and ordinary gifts. This 25th anniversary edition features a new introduction and two additional chapters, one which provides help for pastors and counselors.
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- By Anonymous User on 06-23-23
By: Jerry L. Sittser
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Strong Women, Soft Hearts
- A Woman’s Guide to Cultivating a Wise Heart and a Passionate Life
- By: Paula Rinehart
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Through inspiring real-life testimonies, Paula Rinehart writes as both a kindred spirit and a compassionate counselor to women feeling robbed of their passions and trapped by life's disappointing realities. Women who long to be released from the burden of hard choices and perpetually empty souls will be empowered to rediscover dreams long lost and refocus energy misguided. Strong Women, Soft Hearts cries out for women to embrace passion and approach life as something to be lived, not merely survived.
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Important
- By Alixandra Hice on 12-04-22
By: Paula Rinehart
What listeners say about Holy Unhappiness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ellen
- 08-06-23
Settle in for this one, it's great!
This book reflects Opelt's growing wisdom, deep thinking, and beautiful writing. She thoughtfully, respectfully, and lovingly asks hard questions of herself and the church, questions that not every follower of Christ will articulate. Enjoy the journey to a surprising conclusion. Thank you for writing the book we needed!
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- Mama Curley
- 12-07-23
Special Read
I have had this book for a few months. A friend recommended it so I bought it, and put it on my listen list. It is kind of mind blowing the time of my life that I listened to this. I felt like I was supposed to listen to this book at this moment of my life. Thank you for discussing these topics we don't tend to discuss.
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- B. Cheek
- 06-15-24
Didn’t love it, but had some good points
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.
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