If you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of “self-help” books out there. In many bookstores, the self-help and personal growth sections are the largest. My wife came across one as one of those suggestions you get on Kindle, then a local newspaper columnist happened to mention it in a column. The book is The Let Them Theory by author Mel Robbins.1 The central premise of the book revolves around the idea of taking control of one’s own life while stopping habits of trying to control others.
(Before I continue, I want to say that I haven’t read the book; I have, however, researched the book to understand the concepts behind it. This post isn’t a review or critique of this particular book, but rather an examination of core ideas contained in it and the many similar books on the market.)
The book description starts out by saying, “If you’ve ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn’t you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words—Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you.” This is a laudable goal; we are after all not called to control other people’s lives or let them control us. Scripture calls us to lovingly confront others, yet we are not the Holy Spirit; we are not God in their lives.
At the same time, the book betrays the real energy behind the ideas. The description goes on to state: “Mel Robbins . . . teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can’t control and start focusing on what truly matters: YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life” (emphasis mine). This is the real problem with this and other so-called “self-help” books. For a follower of Christ, change is, in the end, not about us. It is God-centered and others-oriented. We are called to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control not only because that is how God desires us to live or that it makes us better and free people. We are called to those things for the sake of others. Self-help theories consistently put “me” on the throne of my life, where the gospel calls us to deny and dethrone self and place Christ on the throne.
The kind of change that Jesus calls us to comes only by the Holy Spirit. Yet, the self-help movement would have us believe that we can change ourselves. It’s all in our hands. This is no different than the lie of the serpent in Genesis 3: “You will be like God.” You can do it on your own; you can make life work for you. What we have in this particular self-help idea is if people won’t help me obtain my goals (for me), then I’ll just let them do their own thing and I’ll continue to find ways to do life on my own terms.
The self-help movement wants (at least some version of) the results of the fruit of the Spirit without the Holy Spirit and without submitting to Christ. This, however, is impossible. Paul tells us this:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1–3)
Those who are outside of Christ (unregenerate) are “dead”. Dead people can do nothing to improve themselves or their condition. Those who are spiritually dead are driven by the passions of our flesh (this means more than sexual passion). About the flesh, Paul reminds us that:
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7–8)
And also,
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
Don’t be fooled into accepting the gospel of self-reliance. It is not up to you, and the Lord did not call you to be sanctified apart from Him. What He calls us to is to live in grace and dependence upon Him. As Paul reminded the Athenians long ago, “In Him, we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We can do nothing apart from Him, and all we do by His grace is done for His glory, our good, and the sake of others.
The Let Them Theory (Hay House Publishers, 2024). The product description of the book, which is quoted several times in this post, is at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D978YKXT.
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