Though commonly feared and avoided, these feelings of uncertainty can be your greatest assets on this journey because it is in uncertainty that we probe, question, and discover. According to the ancients, you don't need to be a saint or spiritual master to experience profound awakening and live with God's presence and guidance. You need only to wander.In clear and lucid prose that combines the heart of a mystic, the soul of a poet, and the mind of a biblical scholar, Dr. Eric Elnes demystifies the seven gifts bestowed in the Dark Wood: the gifts of uncertainty, emptiness, being thunderstruck, getting lost, temptation, disappearing, and the gift of misfits.This is a book for anyone who feels awkward in their search for God, anyone who seeks to find holiness amid their holy mess, and anyone who prefers practicality to piety when it comes to finding their place in this world.

    In it she writes:Through His longsuffering and steadfastness, God has invited me to know Him better. And the more intimate I've become with Him, the more acquainted I've become with His voice. He has proven Himself to me not because I'm more special than anyone else, but because He loves proving His Word is true-to all His children. To you.One of Priscilla's bestselling titles, Discerning the Voice of God is now completely revised with updated content and reflection questions. Each section contains insights that will aid you in your desire to hear Him speak: Realize the Way He Speaks, Recognize the Sound of His Voice, Remember What He Wants to Accomplish, and Ready Yourself for Even More. Discover the treasure of recognizing how God keeps in touch with his beloved people and watch as He communicates with you.

    However, when the Bible calls Christians to be hospitable, it's calling them to much more. In this book, Rosaria Butterfield invites readers into her home and shows from her own life and experience how "radically ordinary hospitality" can be a bridge for bringing the gospel to lost friends and neighbors—something that she experienced herself on her journey to Christ. Such hospitality welcomes those who look, think, believe, and act differently than us into our own everyday, sometimes messy lives. Christians will be inspired and equipped to use their homes and tables as a way of showing a skeptical, unbelieving world what love and authentic faith really look like.Table of ContentsPreface: Radically Ordinary Hospitality1. Priceless: The Merit of Hospitality2. The Jesus Paradox: The Vitality of Hospitality3. Our Post Christian World: The Kindness of Hospitality4. God Never Gets the Address Wrong: The Providence of Hospitality5. The Gospel Comes with a House Key: The Seal of Hospitality 6. Judas In the Church: The Borderland of Hospitality7. Giving Up the Ghosts: The Lamentation of Hospitality8. The Daily Grind: The Basics of Hospitality9. Blessed are the Merciful: The Hope of Hospitality 10. Walking the Emmaus Road: The Future of Hospitality Conclusion: Feeding the 5000: The Nuts and Bolts and Beans and Rice

    Pain, conflict, and uncertainty dominate the headlines. Our daily lives are noisy and chaotic—filled with too much information and too little wisdom. No wonder we often find it easier to retreat into safe spaces, hunker down in likeminded tribes, and just do our best to survive life. But what if God wants you to do more than simply survive? What if he wants you to thrive in this world, and be part of its redemption? What if you could rediscover the beauty and goodness God established in the beginning?By learning the lost art of discernment, you can. Discernment is more than simply avoiding bad things; discernment actually frees you to navigate the world with confidence and joy by teaching you how to recognize and choose good things. When you learn discernment and develop a taste for all that’s good, you will encounter God in remarkable new ways. Come, discover the God who not only made all things, but who will also make all things good once again.

    Oliver and Smalley help women distinguish between self-centered, insecure, childish relationships and other-centered, healthy, "grown-up" relationships. Using personal anecdotes and scriptural principles, they explain ten characteristics of a grown-up friend and offer ideas on how readers can develop these attributes in themselves. Finally, they tackle the tough issues of friendships, such as how to support a friend in crisis, how to work toward forgiveness when a friend has injured you, and how to determine when it is best to let a friendship go.

    Unique among books on warfare and deliverance, this easy-to-follow handbook draws riches from the Bible, while also offering tactical guidance for conquering the demons of fear and doubt that assail believers. Framing his teaching on Paul's armor of God passage in Ephesians 6, Richards uncovers strategies of Satan and analyzes the armor piece by piece to reveal how God provides protection from every attack of the enemy. Hands-on exercises at the end of each section, plus in-depth, analytical appendixes, help readers identify and stand against powers of evil--and experience true freedom.

    ­­­­Momentum confronts some of the issues that have hindered personal and corporate Revivals from continuing. The authors share their own perspectives and experiences that they have seen in their own lives on this topic. Every believer has access to live in a momentum that was initiated from the beginning of time. So let’s embrace our inheritance and step into the momentum of the Kingdom!

    In turn, many church leaders lament their lack of resources to build and manage effective programs to help people become fully devoted followers of Christ. In Transforming Discipleship Greg Ogden introduces his vision for discipleship, emphasizing that solutions will not be found in large-scale, finely-tuned, resource-heavy programs. Instead, Ogden recovers Jesus' method of accomplishing life change by investing in just a few people at a time. And he shows how discipleship can become a self-replicating process with ongoing impact from generation to generation. Biblical, practical and tremendously effective, Transforming Discipleship provides the insights and philosophy of ministry behind Ogden's earlier work, Discipleship Essentials. Together, these ground-breaking books have the potential to transform how your church transforms the lives of its people.

    God has always called people out of their safe, walled cities into uncomfortable places, revealing paths they would never have chosen. Despite our culture of self-indulgence, we too are called to walk an alternative path one of humility, justice, and peace. Walter Brueggemann s thought-provoking reflections for the season of Lent invite us to consider the challenging, beautiful life that comes with walking the way of grace.

    Filled with humorous insights and challenging ideas, The God Who Smokes imagines a twenty-first-century church where hope hangs with holiness, passion sits next to purity, and compassion can relate to character.

    Sure, many will hear about Jesus, and about being good and avoiding bad, but the gospel message simply isn't there--at least not in its specificity and its fullness. Inspired by the needs of both the overchurched and the unchurched, and bolstered by the common neglect of the explicit gospel within Christianity, Matt Chandler has written this punchy treatise. He begins with the specifics of the gospel--outlining what it is and what it is not--and then switches gears to focus on the fullness of the gospel and its massive implications on both personal and cosmic levels. Recognizing our tendency to fixate on either the micro or macro aspects of the gospel, Chandler also warns us of the dangers on either side--of becoming overly individualistic or syncretistic. Here is a call to true Christianity, to know the gospel explicitly, and to unite the church on the amazing grounds of the good news of Jesus!

    We want faith to act like an orderly set of truth-claims designed to solve the problems and pain that life throws at us. With signature candor and depth, Jen Pollock Michel helps readers imagine a Christian faith open to mystery. While there are certainties in Christian faith, at the heart of the Christian story is also paradox. Jesus invites us to abandon the polarities of either and or in order to embrace the difficult, wondrous dissonance of and. The incarnation―the paradox of God made human―teaches us to look for God in the and of body and spirit, heaven and earth. In the kingdom, God often hides in plain sight and announces his triumph on the back of a donkey. In the paradox of grace, we receive life eternal by actively participating in death. And lament, with its clear-eyed appraisal of suffering alongside its commitment to finding audience with God, is a paradoxical practice of faith. Each of these themes give us certainty about God while also leading us into greater curiosity about his nature and activity in the world. As Michel writes, "As soon as we think we have God figured out, we will have ceased to worship him as he is." With personal stories and reflection on Scripture, literature, and culture, Michel takes us deeper into mystery and into worship of the One who is Mystery and Love.

    On the inside, those same women are little girls cowering at the edge of the playground, hoping no one notices them, yet still wishing they could join in. They've professed faith and know the right things, but they struggle to truly take hold of the "life more abundant" that Jesus offers. Instead they settle for a life that's less than what God has promised them. In this liberating book, Sharon Jaynes reveals the most common reasons women get stuck with a mediocre, mundane faith. Then she shows women how to break free and move forward, leaving behind the feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, and insecurity that are holding them hostage. She uncovers untapped sources of confidence and courage, equipping women to move from knowing the truth to actually believing it--and living it out boldly in a life marked by true freedom.

    And then going one step further, this project shares the good news of Jesus and the way of life that he makes possible.

    In a female culture built on Photoshopped perfection and Pinterest fantasies, we've lost the ability to dream our own big dreams. So busy trying to do it all and have it all, we've missed the life we were really designed for. And we are paying the price. The rise of loneliness, depression, and anxiety among the female population in Western cultures is at an all-time high. Overall, women are two and a half times more likely to take antidepressants than men. What is it about our culture, the expectations, and our way of life that is breaking women down in unprecedented ways?In this vulnerable memoir of transformation, Rebekah Lyons shares her journey from Atlanta, Georgia, to the heart of Manhattan, where she found herself blindsided by crippling depression and anxiety. Overwhelmed by the pressure to be domestically efficient, professionally astute, and physically attractive, Rebekah finally realized that freedom can come only by facing our greatest fears and fully surrendering to God's call on our lives. This book is an invitation for all women to take that first step toward freedom. For it is only when we free-fall that we can truly fly.