Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: To be a hero, to be a warrior, to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men abandon those dreams and desires-aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a "nice guy." It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death. In this provocative book, Eldredge gives women a look inside the true heart of a man and gives men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!

    She brought up a past mistake. He walked out angry. She left without saying good-bye. An ordinary day in an ordinary marriage. But what if things could be different? What if the moments that seem the most ordinary moments of annoyance, conflict, pain, or cold indifference could become moments in which you're able to understand God's incredible agenda for love and begin to do something new?Winston T. Smith, drawing on his extensive experience as a marriage counselor, offers a simple yet powerful prescription for changing your marriage. He shows how examining the everyday disappointments and irritations in your marriage will help you understand yourself, your spouse, and your need for God's love. Change begins with seeing day-to-day interactions from a different perspective, taking simple steps to love one another more effectively, and then learning how to take those steps over and over again. Interactions that used to devolve into pointless annoyances and fights can become an opportunity for God's activity and love to become increasingly evident and powerful.The principles in this book will take your marriage to extraordinary places and lead you into a deeper relationship with an extraordinary God. Don't settle for an ordinary marriage, learn to live out God's extraordinary love in your most intimate relationship.

    Online dating, social media, internet pornography, and the phenomenon of the smartphone generation have created an avalanche of change with far-reaching consequences for sexuality today. The church has struggled to address this new moral ecology because it has focused on clarity of belief rather than quality of formation. The real challenge for spiritual formation lies in addressing the underlying moral intuitions we carry subconsciously, which are shaped by the convictions of our age.In this book, a fresh new voice offers a persuasive Christian vision of sex and relationships, calling young adults to faithful discipleship in a hypersexualized world. Drawing from his pastoral experience with young people and from cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines, Jonathan Grant helps Christian leaders understand the cultural forces that make the church’s teaching on sex and relationships ineffective in the lives of today’s young adults. He also sets forth pastoral strategies for addressing the underlying fault lines in modern sexuality.

    It's until death do us part. Then come eternal rewards or regrets depending on how we spent our lives. In his latest book, Francis Chan joins together with his wife Lisa to address the question many couples wonder at the altar: How do I have a healthy marriage? Setting aside typical topics on marriage, Francis and Lisa dive into Scripture to understand what it means to have a relationship that satisfies the deepest parts of our souls. In the same way Crazy Love changed the way we saw our personal relationship with God, You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity will radically shift the way we see one of the most important relationships in our life. Jesus was right. We have it all backwards. The way to have a great marriage is by not focusing on marriage. Whether you are single, dating or married, You and Me Forever will help you discover the adventure that you were made for and learn how to thrive in it. 100% of the net profits from You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity will go towards providing food, shelter and rehabilitation for thousands of orphaned children and exploited women in partnership with global charities.

    Yet when bitterness takes root in our hearts, its effects are anything but small. In this collection of short articles, Jim Wilson and others discuss what it means to live as "imitators of God." As the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians, we have been called to leave the bitterness and anger of the world and instead embrace the love and compassion of our God. The authors remind us that we are to forgive others just as we have been forgiven, pointing to Scriptural admonitions and examples as they offer sound teaching on the trials and temptations of everyday life.

    And it's the first program for couples developed by a couple. And Les Leslie Parrott are no ordinary couple. As marriage counselors and teachers, they're on the cutting edge of marriage research and education. Each year they teach a blockbuster relationships course to hundred of college students They see the struggles and dreams of couples up close. And they reveal the flaws and foibles of their own relationship in order to show how challenging--and rewarding -- marriage can be. Most importantly, however, Les and Leslie Parrott share a dream: to equip couples in their twenties and thirties to prepare for lifelong marriage before it even starts. They know from experience that many couples spend more time preparing for their wedding than they do for marriage. Having tasted firsthand the difficulties of 'wedding bell blues, ' they show young couples the skills they need to make the transition from 'single' to 'married' smooth and enjoyable. Whether you're contemplating marriage, engaged, or newly married, Les and Leslie will lead you through the thorniest spot in establishing a relationship. You'll learn how to uncover and deal with problems before they emerge. You'll discover how to communicate, not just talk. And you'll learn the importance of becoming 'soul mates' -- a couple committed to growing together spiritually. Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts is more than a book -- it's practically a premarital counseling session! Questions at the end of every chapter help you explore each topic personally. Companion men's and women's workbooks full of self-tests and exercises will help you apply what you learn. And the Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts video curriculum will help you to learn and grow with other couples who are dealing with the same struggles and questions. So start today, while your love is fresh. Save your marriage -- before it starts

    God can. Life never lacks for improvement—in ourselves, in our relationships, in just about everything. But all our brave stabs at getting better, if they ever change anything, are incomplete at best, complete failures at worst. Sometimes much worse. Unless . . . The gospel of Jesus Christ is the great “unless” of life—both for those who already believe (but can’t believe the messes they’re still capable of making), as well as those who don’t yet believe but just know their way isn’t working. Recovering Redemption, written with a pastor’s bold intensity and a counselor’s discerning insight, takes you deeply into Scripture to take you deeply inside yourself, discovering that the heart of all our problems is truly the problem of our hearts. But because of what God has done, and because of what God can do, the most confident, contented person you know could actually be you—redeemed through Jesus Christ. None of us, really, can do what’s required to change our lives for the better, taking what’s persistently frustrating and making it perfectly satisfying. Yet as hopeless as that may sound, it is the flat-line truth in which good news comes to life . . . to your life. For just as what’s lost can be found, what’s wrong can—even now—be recovered.

    When she navigated a time of doubt and loss, the prayer was grounding for her. She writes that practices of prayer gave words to my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter the doctrines of the church not as tidy little antidotes for pain, but as a light in darkness, as good news.Where do we find comfort when we lie awake worrying or weeping in the night? This book offers a prayerful and frank approach to the difficulties in our ordinary lives at work, at home, and in a world filled with uncertainty.

    They are living, complex things that grow and change. Sometimes they fly so high we scrape the top of heaven. Sometimes they barely make it off the ground. Sometimes they feel buried under the ground. What hope do we have of understanding ourselves when we are so changeable? And what hope do we have for lasting change when our response to life is so different from one day to the next? But God designed our hearts to be both varied and varying, and he delights in his craftsmanship. He made our hearts to respond to life in a wide, beautiful spectrum of thought, desire, and choice. This spectrum bends, adapts, expands, and contracts as it dynamically responds to changing situations. The goal of change is not to flatten this variety, but to guide our responses so they reflect who we are in Christ. Jesus perfectly lived his humanity out as a dynamic being. Now as our risen Savior, he redeems all of human experience for his purposes. Without a holistic understanding of people, our approach to those in need of help will be lopsided, focusing on just one aspect of human experienceperhaps simply trying to correct faulty thinking, to stir different emotions, or to correct wrong actions. Focusing on one of these aspects of human experience to the exclusion of the others does not do justice to Gods design. Jeremy Pierre, in this ground-breaking book, lays out a holistic understanding of who we are and how we change through a dynamic relationship with Christ. Every day our dynamic hearts need help from our dynamic Savior. As Dr. Pierre connects the realities of our changing and complex thoughts, desires, emotions, and actions to who we are in Christ, readers will gain a more complete understanding of who we are, who God is, and how change happens in

    Best-selling author Shannon Ethridge theorizes, “Fantasies are simply the brain’s way of trying to heal itself from unresolved tragedies and traumas. We mentally compartmentalize our pain to make room for pleasure.”Fantasies have deep psychological roots, and if acted on many of them can do deep psychological damage. Rather than let fantasies rule us, let’s take out the sting and bring them under God’s rule, allowing the Lord to heal us from the brokenness and insecurities that cause inappropriate fantasies to haunt us.Without being judgmental or condemning, Shannon helps us dissect several common and often-disturbing topics, such as:• a distorted fascination with pornography• the mental pursuit of multiple partners• the lure of gay and lesbian desires• bondage, domination, and sadomasochism (BDSM)With tips for controlling unwanted fantasies and resources for providing a safe haven for recovery, The Fantasy Fallacy helps us recognize and heal our emotional pain and equips us to help others do the same.

    Because a wedding joins together two imperfect people, all couples experience disappointment, conflict, and pain. How husbands and wives respond to these challenges determines the kind of people they will become and the kind of marriage they will have.Making Marriage Beautiful reveals how the pursuit of Christ results in profound transformation for both the individual and the marriage. Rather than offering clichés and formulas, Greco relies on candor, humor, and real life stories to bring encouragement and wisdom to all couples, regardless of whether they have been married four weeks or forty years.

    Yet many who sit next to us in the pew at church fit that description, says author Wesley Hill. As a celibate gay Christian, Hill gives us a glimpse of what it looks like to wrestle firsthand with God's "No" to same-sex relationships. What does it mean for gay Christians to live faithful to God while struggling with the challenge of their homosexuality? What is God's will for believers who experience same-sex desires? Those who choose celibacy are often left to deal with loneliness and the hunger for relationships. How can gay Christians experience God's favor and blessing in the midst of a struggle that for many brings a crippling sense of shame and guilt? Weaving together reflections from his own life and the lives of other Christians, such as Henri Nouwen and Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hill offers a fresh perspective on these questions. He advocates neither unqualified "healing" for those who struggle, nor their accommodation to temptation, but rather faithfulness in the midst of brokenness. "I hope this book may encourage other homosexual Christians to take the risky step of opening up their lives to others in the body of Christ," Hill writes. "In so doing, they may find, as I have, by grace, that being known is spiritually healthier than remaining behind closed doors, that the light is better than the darkness."

    We plan. We assume things are going to go a certain way. And when they don't, we find ourselves in a new place---a place we haven't been before, a place we never would have imagined on our own. It is the difficult and the unexpected, and maybe even the tragic, that opens us up and frees us to see things in new ways. Many of the most significant moments in our lives come not because it all went right but because it all fell apart. Suffering does that. It hurts, but it also creates. This book is an exploration of the complex relationship between suffering and creativity, driven by the belief that there is art in the agony.

    Our churches often see spirituality as personal and private. But we cannot go long in our Christian pilgrimage before realizing that isolation leads to spiritual barrenness. We soon discover that our souls long for accompaniment, intimacy and spiritual friendship. As a result, many Christians today are rediscovering the ancient practice of spiritual direction.In this inviting guide, David G. Benner introduces readers to the riches of spiritual friendship and direction, explaining what they are and how they are practiced. Spiritual direction moves beyond mere moral lifestyle accountability and goes deeper than popular notions of mentoring or discipling. Through prayerful, guided attunement to God's activity, sacred companions provide care for the soul.If we are to experience significant spiritual formation and growth, our souls must be nurtured through spiritual companions. Benner, well-accustomed to God's work through relationships, models the kind of traveling companion who can move us toward deeper intimacy with God.

    Mark and Debra Laaser go to the heart of the matter. Instead of focusing on how to sidestep or compensate for perceived differences, they dig deeper, to the core of our souls, to examine how the basic desires and needs of all people make us more alike than different.The Seven Desires of Every Heart explores the common desires God gives you—to be heard, affirmed, blessed, safe, touched, chosen, and included. Using stories, Biblical references, and sound psychological principles, the Laasers explain each desire and show us how we seek it and what it feels like to have it truly fulfilled. You also will learn healthy ways to embody these desires in your relationships. You will be given the tools you need to start repairing and rebuilding relationships and developing new skills for creating emotional and spiritual intimacy.