Shaken: Fighting to Stand Strong No Matter What Comes Your Way by Tim Tebow Book Analysis
📌Category: | Books |
📌Words: | 890 |
📌Pages: | 4 |
📌Published: | 31 January 2022 |
According to Tim Tebow, the author of Shaken: Fighting to Stand Strong No Matter What Comes Your Way , God will lead a person through their hard times if they are faithful and try to live in a way that imitates God.
Tim Tebow was a professional football player in the NFL for many years who had many ups and down within his career. When he was cut from the NFL for the first time, he created a foundation called the Tim Tebow Foundation which is used to help people who need it the most through hard times. Tebow’s purpose in writing Shaken: Fighting to Stand Strong No Matter What Comes Your Way was to stress the importance of how he stayed faithful to God no matter what life threw at him. The audience that Tim Tebow was trying to reach was anybody who needed to hear about the ways that God can shape their lives based on Tim Tebow’s experiences. Tebow had been cut from the NFL a year prior to writing this book and he wanted to demonstrate to people how he was dealing with his emotions. Tebow’s motivation for writing this book and also starting his foundation was to show how having a strong relationship with God could get you through the hard times. “Tim has always inspired me with his dedication to grow and improve in all aspects of life, especially his faith. With this book, Tim encourages readers to keep moving and stay strong while battling life’s obstacles” (Cam Newton). Throughout the book, he talks about his path through his career including the good and the bad. He talks about his college and NFL careers along with the beginning of his foundation. The main point in telling all this stories is to show how his faith connects all of these stories and how he handled each individual situation.
The two rhetorical appeals that Tim Tebow used to appeal to his audience in Shaken: Fighting to Stand Strong No Matter What Comes Your Way the most was pathos and ethos. Tebow didn’t use many statistics or facts so logos was not the main appeal that he used. He used pathos when he talked about all of the people that he is helping with his foundation. While he helps these people out of the goodness of his heart, he uses it in his book to try and persuade the reader to support his foundation. “Though she survived and was able to leave the hospital after a month, Robyn was diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP), a condition that affects the brain and movement”… “For just a few minutes, Robyn shared her story with me. I wished we had more time to talk, but I asked if I could stay in touch. A few months later, we granted her a W15H, one of my favorites,” (Tebow 117 & 119). His mention of what she dealt with in her youth and then talking about how he helped her shows the use of pathos and shows what his foundation does. The main rhetorical appeal that he uses is ethos because the majority of the book is about his personal experiences which makes him a credible source of what faith can do. Tim Tebow talks about being traded to the Jets and the new management coming bringing hope of a fresh start. “I lasted two weeks into the off-season. Then, on April 29, 2013, I was released. You already know what comes next. I was disappointed and, yeah, maybe even a little angry” … “I was upset, but I also trusted that this was part of God’s plan. It was a truth that I was having to remind myself of over and over,” (Tebow, 68). He talks about his own painful experiences and how he managed to get through them with faith which shows ethos and that he is a credible source.
One of the great attributes of the book, Shaken: Fighting to Stand Strong No Matter What Comes Your Way, is that it does not pertain to only one audience. It gives examples of times and situations that may pertain to teenagers and young adults but there is no specific group of people that this book is written for. He gives examples that people may face in their every day lives whether it is at school or out in public. When he is trying to pertain to teenagers who are still in school, he talks to them about problems they may be facing. “When you fail that big test… When your best friend turns on you… When that bully in school just won’t leave you alone… When your parents get divorcee… When you make a dumb mistake… When it seems like you can’t overcome that learning or physical disability…,” (Tebow 27). He appeals to his teenage audience by talking about examples of ways that they have been put down and relates it to the issues in his career. Tebow tries to appeal to the majority of audiences by talking about things such as the internet and peer pressure. “When life gets hard, when someone says something mean about you on Facebook or Instagram or even to your face”... “when you feel pressured to look act, or talk a certain way because everyone else is doing it, it’s important to circle back to God’s love. It’s important to remember that He has an amazing purpose for your life,” (Tebow 37). He uses these examples about real life and relates them to himself so he can help people deal with them the same way that he did. Since that is his main goal, he can appeal to all ages by relating to the real life situations that may pertain to them.