Review: "How to Ruin Your Life by 30" by Steve Farrar (Moody, 2012)

Few Christian authors are as reliable and consistent as Steve Farrar. Founder and chairman of Men's Leadership Ministries, frequent public speaker and prolific author, Farrar writes and speaks consistently on the importance of the responsibilities of Christian men - as husbands, fathers, leaders, and individuals.Steve's latest book, How to Ruin Your Life By 30, continues this trend and does so eloquently and usefully.

How to Ruin Your Life By 30 is the result of many years of learning and teaching. As Steve describes in a note to the reader, the book began some years ago as a private high school graduation address entitled "How to Ruin Your Life by 40." This commencement addresses was expanded into a series of talks for a conference at Biola University. A staffer at Moody Publishers who attended the conference suggested expanding the Biola talks into a book, resulting in 2006's How to Ruin Your Life By 40. The current volume is a modification of the 2006 book, but targeted towards a slightly younger audience.

How to Ruin Your Life By 30 lists nine different ways that the average male might be ruining their life by 30.

1. Overlooking the law of cause and effect.
2. Getting off to a bad start.
3. Ignoring God's purpose for your life.
4. Refusing to take responsibility for your actions.
5. Neglecting your gifts & strengths when choosing a vocation.
6. Disregarding what the Bible says about sex and marriage.
7. Stopping learning.
8. Isolating yourself.
9. Refusing daily wisdom.

Each chapter is written in a breezy yet informative style, demonstrating ways we might be getting ourselves into serious trouble and presenting solid biblical examples of men who have faced the same problem and how they resolved their problem (or, in some cases, didn't).

It's a great credit to Steve that, while the book is targeted to the under-30 crowd (an age group I left during the first Clinton administration!), it is both appealing and instructive to men of any age. Any man who looks back over their life and wonders how he got there (and, perhaps, how it all went so wrong on the way) will benefit from the lessons in  How to Ruin Your Life By 30.

While the whole book is both informative and enjoyable (an all-too-rare trait in Christian nonfiction publishing today), I found the real key to be in the second chapter, about getting off to a bad start. Steve hammers home the idea that all is not lost: "Your past is past. There is still great hope for your life. ... Don't let regrets hold you back. You are not your past." This sounds simple and oh-so-obvious, but sometimes it's all-too-easy to overlook the obvious.

So if you've screwed up in one or more areas of your life (and let's face it, guys, who hasn't?), or you want to try to avoid making the big life-shattering mistakes,  then How to Ruin Your Life By 30 is the book for you - whether you're 13, 30, 47 (that's me!), or any age. Word of advice, friends: If you see Steve Farrar's name on the cover, as they say in Britain, it's a "dead cert" you want to read it - and pass it on to a son, grandson, nephew, or any young man whose life is important to you.