Crazy Faith Book Summary - Crazy Faith Book explained in key points

Listen to the Intro

00:00

Crazy Faith summary

Name: Crazy Faith
Rating: 3.8 (206 reviews)
Author: Michael Todd

Michael Todd

It’s Only Crazy Until it Happens

3.8 (206 ratings)

20 mins

Brief summary

"Crazy Faith" by Michael Todd is a Christian non-fiction book that inspires readers to trust God and take bold steps of faith. Todd shares real-life stories and practical advice to encourage readers to live a life of greater purpose and fulfillment.

Topics

Self-Help Christianity Inspiration

Table of Contents

Crazy Faith
Summary of 7 key ideas

Audio & text in the Blinkist app

Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Take your faith to the next level.

Do you long for something bigger, better, or more meaningful in your life? Perhaps you want to start your own business, or find that special person, but something always seems to be holding you back.

These blinks are here to show you how God can help you overcome the obstacles in your way. Whether you’re struggling with self-doubt, a lack of resources, or just plain laziness, this is your go-to-guide for harnessing the unique power of faith.

Packed with inspirational Bible stories and teachings, these blinks explore how the word of God can be applied to our crazy modern lives. You’ll discover all the different ways you can reach out to God, and why His support is the secret ingredient for creating the life you truly want.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how a pen and paper can invite a miracle into your life;
what doubting Thomas can teach us about faith; and
why you need to think more like an architect.

Crazy faith makes the impossible possible.

Imagine you’ve traveled back in time to the year 1899. You see people standing on a train station platform, and you tell them that in a few years, someone will develop the first prototype for a metal winged bird that will fly them wherever they want to go. It will be called an airplane, you say. How would they react? They’d probably say you were crazy.

Now imagine you’re in the year 1950, in the southern United States, when Black Americans weren’t even allowed to eat at the same lunch counters as white people.

You explain to some white people that, in a few decades time, Black and white children will attend the same schools and even marry each other. Not only would the people you’re talking to call you crazy, but they might even try to hurt you.

The key message here is: Crazy faith makes the impossible possible.

But both of these things – air travel and the end of legally mandated racial segregation in America – happened. Ideas that once seemed crazy became a reality. This poses a question: How can you achieve the impossible in your life?

The answer is by having crazy faith. The basic definition of faith is trusting that something is true without being able to prove it. In your daily life, you might believe you’ll end up in a happy marriage, even though you’ve suffered years of unhealthy or abusive relationships. Or you might absolutely believe that you’re going to pass on a legacy of wealth and prosperity to your future grandchildren, even though you were born into poverty.

You can cultivate this incredible sense of faith by rethinking life’s foundations.

Sadly, many of us live on shaky foundations of self-doubt and second-rate principles. But if you’re going to shoot for the stars, you need to start thinking like an architect. When architects design a skyscraper, they plan extremely deep foundations for the building – often extending several stories below ground! This depth means the building can be very tall, but will still stand against the wind, rain, and shifts in the earth around it. You can become an architect of your own life by basing your foundations in the word of God, and trusting His plan for you.

In the following blinks, we’ll explore how crazy faith can help you climb higher than ever before.

Reach crazy faith by taking baby steps.

We know we have to walk before we can run, but when it comes to faith, we must also crawl before we can walk. The author calls this crawling phase baby faith, and it refers to starting small and making steady progress.

When you start lifting weights at the gym, you don’t begin with the heaviest dumbbells. Similarly, when the author met his wife, he didn’t declare his everlasting love for her right away. Instead, he took the time to get to know her, woo her, and make her laugh.

God and faith can often feel like one big maybe.

As a pastor, the author is used to answering questions about faith from his congregation. Over the years, the same questions have cropped up again and again. People ask, How can I be sure that God really exists? And How can I be certain that I have a secure future to look forward to? The answers the author gives might surprise you. Instead of trying to reassure people about their doubts, he replies that, actually, we can’t really be sure that God exists, or that our futures will look like we hope they will.

The key message is this: God and faith can often feel like one big maybe.

When we act in lazy faith, we don’t follow through on God’s vision.

Sometimes even our best friends are too lazy to show up for us. On the night of the Last Supper, Jesus needed love and support; He knew one of His disciples was about to betray him. After dinner He asked His three closest friends, Peter, James, and John, to accompany Him to the Garden of Gethsemane. But when He began walking in the garden, He turned back and saw that His friends had all fallen asleep. This is a perfect example of what the author calls lazy faith.

When Jesus’s disciples fell asleep, it wasn’t because they didn’t care. It was just that, in that moment, they gave in to the weakness of their flesh.

Help your prayers come true by committing them to paper.

All you might need to invite a miracle into your life is a pencil and paper. When the author was in middle school, his family was extremely poor, and he couldn’t afford the cool Nike sneakers he desperately wanted. But what he could do, he realized, was draw them. With the help of a ruler and some nifty draftsmanship, he made precise drawings of the exact sneakers he wished to own. Somehow, within a few weeks, they had made it off the page and onto his feet.

Here’s the key message: Help your prayers come true by committing them to paper.

Praying out loud gives your prayer an extra boost.

Take a moment to consider the wonder and beauty of the world around you. Let your mind linger on the majesty of the mountains, the depths of the oceans, and the birds singing in the morning. How did God bring all of this into creation? He simply used His words.

The Bible story of the world’s creation highlights the power of the spoken word. When God wanted to banish the darkness, He said, Let there be light. Throughout the creation of the earth, He said what He wanted to see manifest. This is the perfect example of what the author calls stating faith.

Even the strongest believers struggle with fading faith.

It’s a sad truth that we don’t live in a fair world. We lose the people we love, our hard work can end in failure, and sometimes, we lose hope completely. Loss, in all its forms, is an inevitable part of life. In the midst of a time of crisis, our crazy faith can turn into fading faith. When our faith fades, we start to doubt whether God is really on our side.

All of us experience fading faith at some point in our lives. For instance, when the author witnesses his autistic son struggling to thrive and communicate, he finds himself wondering whether God is really going to manifest the bright future for his son that he constantly prays for.

Want to see all full key ideas from Crazy Faith?

Key ideas in Crazy Faith

More knowledge in less time

Read or listen

Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.

Find your next read

Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.

Shortcasts ^New

We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

What is Crazy Faith about?

Crazy Faith (2021) explores the multi-faceted nature of modern faith. It explains how key stories from the Bible are still relevant to the challenges we face today, and offers faith-based solutions to the stresses of daily life.

Who should read Crazy Faith?

Believers struggling with their faith
Anyone going through a time of crisis
Fans of Bible stories and teachings

About the Author

Michael Todd is the New York Times best-selling author of Relationship Goals. He’s also been the lead pastor at Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, since 2015.

Categories with Crazy Faith

Motivation & Inspiration Religion & Spirituality

Book summaries like Crazy Faith

Faith Still Moves Mountains

Harris Faulkner

Miraculous Stories of the Healing Power of Prayer

18 min

3.9

All My Knotted-Up Life

Near-Death Experiences, God's Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You

The Psychology of Persuasion

Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back

How to Win at Dating, Marriage, and Sex

23 min

3.0

The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication

John C. Maxwell

Apply Them and Make the Most of Your Message

How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything

Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage

Belief In An Age Of Skepticism

18 min

4.0

Driven

Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria

How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices

How to Accept Your Fears, Release the Past, and Live Your Courageous Life

The New Psychology of Success

An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

25 min

4.7

Emotional Intelligence Habits

Travis Bradberry

Change Your Habits, Change Your Life

18 min

4.1

Move Fast and Fix Things

Frances Frei & Anne Morriss

The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solving Hard Problems and Accelerating Change

7 min

2.9

How to Talk to Anyone

Leil Lowndes

92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships

25 min

4.2

Faith, Hope and Carnage

Nick Cave

A Meditation on Faith, Art, Music, Freedom, Grief, and Love

17 min

4.2

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)

Brené Brown

Making the Journey From “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough”

15 min

4.4

Nonviolent Communication

Marshall B. Rosenberg

A Language of Life

24 min

4.5

From Strength to Strength

Arthur C. Brooks

Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

19 min

4.5

Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs

Karen Berman & Joe Knight with John Case

What You Really Need to Know about the Numbers

Finding the Path to Your True Self

Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace

23 min

2.8

Napoleon Hill’s Golden Rules

Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal

How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work

A Psychiatrist's Memoir

15 min

3.8

Religion for Atheists

Alain de Botton

A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion

The Art of Understanding Others

24 min

3.9

High Performance Habits

Brendon Burchard

How Extraordinary People Become That Way

An Essential Guide to Life

Changing Habits for Good Using Self-Compassion and Understanding

Contemplations on Affection, Friendship, Eros & Charity

How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life

23 min

4.2

Superhuman Innovation

Chris Duffey

Transforming Business with Artificial Intelligence

Burn Fat, Heal Inflammation, and Eat Like the High-Performing Human You Were Meant to Be

The Secret to Freedom and Success

10 min

4.3

Fully Present

Susan L. Smalley and Diana Winston

The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness

21 min

4.5

American Prometheus

Kai Bird & Martin J Sherwin

The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

What the Rich Teach Their Kids about Money – That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

29 min

4.6

Being and Nothingness

Jean-Paul Sartre

A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology

What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?

21 min

3.2

That Little Voice in Your Head

Mo Gawdat

Adjust the Code That Runs Your Brain

20 min

4.5

Getting Past Your Past

Francine Shapiro

Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy

Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety

The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman

Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

Why We Fall For It . . . Every Time

19 min

4.1

People ❤️ Blinkist

Sven O.

It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

Thi Viet Quynh N.

Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

Jonathan A.

Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

Renee D.

Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.