Take Back Your Life by Levi Lusko
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Take Back Your Life by Levi Lusko is a 40-day interactive book about changing the way you think so you can change the way you live. It is not a light little devotional you skim on your coffee break and forget by lunch. There is grief in here, and fear, and anxiety, the strongholds and the lies and the flat-out war that can go on inside your own head. Levi writes from real loss, including the death of his young daughter, Lenya, and I want you to know that going in. The book is powerful, and it may also be tender ground if you are grieving a child of your own.
The Train Your Thoughts Climb On
What got me most is how Lusko ties our thinking to our faith and our everyday life. He does not treat a thought like some small harmless thing, and he shows how one can steer you straight into fear or bitterness or shame or despair before you even notice you climbed aboard that train. If you have ever had a single thought turn into ten, you know the feeling. It is like a pickleball ricocheting around a closed room, and pretty soon you are rehearsing old pain, bracing for disasters that have not happened, and nodding along to lies you would never say out loud to a friend.
The book keeps circling back to taking those thoughts seriously. Not worshiping them, not stuffing them down, not pretending they are not there. Taking them captive, the way Scripture puts it, and deciding they do not get the last word just because they showed up.
Lusko is good on identity too. He reminds you that you are loved and chosen and called, and those words sound simple until you notice how hard they are to actually believe. Plenty of people are walking around wearing labels God never handed them, failure and burden and too much and not enough and broken beyond repair. This book leans hard against that, and it keeps insisting that what God says carries more weight than fear or shame or an old mistake or the opinions that get loud in the dark.
Masks, Words, and the Cost of Hiding
I appreciated the parts about masks and shame. People learn to hide for all kinds of reasons. There are some who hid behind humor. Then there are some who hid behind being needed. Others hid behind looking strong, spiritual, busy, and fine. A mask will cover you for a while, but it also keeps everybody at arm’s length from the real you. Being fully known is a risk, and it is also where a lot of the freedom is.
Lusko writes about hope in a way that never feels cheap. Hope is not pretending everything is fine. It is believing God is still in the room when things are the furthest thing from fine. Holding on before you can see the whole picture. Remembering the story is not over just because this chapter is hard. Some of the book turned the mirror on my own words too. My tone and reactions. Honestly, what comes out of my mouth when I am tired and stretched thin. Being worn out might explain a sharp reaction, but it does not erase what that reaction lands on. Growth cannot stay stuck up in your head. Sooner or later it has to show up in how you speak and choose and forgive and keep going.
I would hand this to anybody wrestling with fear, grief or anxious thoughts. Also, I would recommend it to people who have the kind of negative self-talk that has been running the show too long. Read it slow if that is your way. If you are like me, tear through it. Then highlight half of it. After that, circle back later for the parts that would not leave you alone. What I kept coming back to is simple. Your thoughts and words carry more weight than you think. Absolutely none of your pain is going to waste. As long as God is in it, your story is nowhere near finished.