A few years ago I noticed this book on display at our local library.  It was short (130 pages) and seemed interesting, so I checked it out.  It has become one of my favorite books.

The full title of the book is Confronting the Myth of Self-Esteem:  Twelve Keys to Finding Peace, and its author is Ester Rasband.  It teaches truths about finding peace through developing humility, patience, love, unity, and gratitude.  As the title suggests, it also exposes myths to which we often succumb as we mistakenly search for self-esteem.

This little book is full of wisdom.  I have already quoted from this book in at least one other post at this blog, but I would like to do a series of shorter posts to share more of the insights offered by Ester Rasband.

In its introduction, Rasband explains that the purpose of the book is to highlight the difference between the world’s concept of self-esteem and God’s concept of confidence.

“It is perfect irony that that which our worldly self would prize most highly- feeling good about ourselves- can only be achieved by facing that which our worldly self would tell us that we must never face:  our nothingness.”

The first chapter teaches of the importance of accepting God’s word.  We have to overcome the tendency of choosing worldly philosophy over scripture.  In referring to the popularity of self-help books, she says, “How quick we are to try to give one another ‘peace made simple’ and ‘peace without pain.’…Oh, how important it is to look beyond the first glance- to look to the scriptures, which are the Lord’s instruction manual, and find not peace made simple, but peace made possible- not peace without pain but peace that overcomes pain.”

More from the book in a future post….