Book picks similar to
Deep Is the Hunger by Howard Thurman


theology
devotional
personal-growth
mysticism

A Simple Way to Pray


Martin Luther - 2012
    A Simple Way to Pray is a fresh modern translation bringing us Luther's practical instruction, using Luther's I.T.C.P. method of prayer. This method anchors prayer in the catechism or other biblical texts, but allows the Holy Spirit to prompt thoughts via the Word, which may be chased more freely by the mind at prayer.

I Want It All: Exchanging Your Average Life for Deeper Faith, Greater Power, and More Impact


Gwen Smith - 2016
    Exceptional power. And exceptional blessings.Gwen Smith knows how easy it is to dismiss God’s plans with the thoughts, I can’t make a big difference for God because I’m just an ordinary woman with an ordinary life. Yet God created us to join Him in doing amazing work in the world. He created us to live with abundant joy, courage, and influence. But not the joy, courage, and influence of the world. He offers His grace for each failure, His love that shatters hate, His peace that soothes the turmoil, His comfort, guidance, wisdom, rest, power, and significance. Every blessing He has for us is ours for the taking.I Want It All will ignite a fire in your heart to experience more faith, more power, and more impact. More of Jesus. All of Jesus. Everything that God has for you.

Saving the Saved: How Jesus Saves Us from Try-Harder Christianity into Performance-Free Love


Bryan Loritts - 2016
    But grace can.You already know because you’ve tried: repeated attempts to earn God’s love and approval get you nowhere and leave you exhausted. When performance taints our relationship with him, the Christian life can turn into an unholy hustle. It was never meant to be like this.In Saving the Saved, Pastor Bryan Loritts reveals the astonishing truth that God doesn’t want your spiritual scorekeeping. He simply wants your surrender. The punchline of the gospel of Matthew is just that—a message of grace and performance-free love to do-good, try-harder Jews who thought they had to earn their way into God’s favor. It’s an ancient message, yet it can be a lifeline to us today as we live in a world of performance metrics. Just as Matthew wrote to the Jews in his gospel, we were never meant to flounder under the pressures and anxieties of show Christianity. Make no mistake: we are called to live in obedience, but Jesus wants us to save us from the illusion that our actions can ever earn God’s acceptance of us.In Pastor Bryan’s relevant, uncompromising style, Saving the Saved proclaims the good news that once the pressure is off to perform, we are free to abide. Beyond the man-made rules and the red tape, there is a God who knows you by name. Come and meet him as you’ve never known him before.

Dark Night of the Soul


John of the Cross
    

Prayers Plainly Spoken


Stanley Hauerwas - 1999
    Originally prayed in Stanley Hauerwas's divinity school classroom on a variety of occasions, this collection of prayers not only displays an invigorating faith but demonstrates how Christians today can pray with all the passion of the ancient psalmists.

Momentum: What God Starts, Never Ends


Bill Johnson - 2011
    ­­­­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!

A Layman's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours : How the Prayers of the Church Can Change Your Life


Timothy M. Gallagher - 2019
    Paul exhorts us to “pray without ceasing” — a beautiful goal that sounds daunting, even impossible. But wait! These pages break open an authoritative, time-tested method that countless laymen still use today to pray with constancy and thereby soar to the heights of holiness. It’s called the Liturgy of the Hours. Also known as the Divine Office or the breviary, the Liturgy of the Hours is an important vehicle for advancing in the spiritual life — a step that any serious Catholic, with the help of Fr. Timothy Gallagher, can take today. Relying on insights from popes and saints, as well as on his five decades’ experience praying the Liturgy of the Hours, Fr. Gallagher opens your eyes to this spiritual treasury and shows you how, by means of its sanctifying rhythm, it will help you progress on your spiritual journey. Soon, you will be among the multitude of Catholics who pray the Hours daily and are richly blessed by the flow of graces these prayers yield. From the wise Fr. Gallagher, you’ll learn: • The basic elements of the Liturgy of the Hours • How to incorporate them into your day, no matter how busy it may be • How the Hours will revitalize your daily prayers and prevent them from becoming routine • How they will extend the graces you obtain at Mass into your entire day • How praying the Hours with your family will link you more intimately to each other—and to the universal Church If you’re looking to invigorate your prayer life and draw closer to Our Lord in friendship and holy contemplation, discover the Liturgy of the Hours.

The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible


Scot McKnight - 2008
    We cage them or clip their wings to keep them where we want them. Scot McKnight contends that many, conservatives and liberals alike, attempt the same thing with the Bible. We all try to tame it. McKnight’s The Blue Parakeet has emerged at the perfect time to cool the flames of a world on fire with contention and controversy. It calls Christians to a way to read the Bible that leads beyond old debates and denominational battles. It calls Christians to stop taming the Bible and to let it speak anew for a new generation.In his books The Jesus Creed and Embracing Grace, Scot McKnight established himself as one of America’s finest Christian thinkers, an author to be reckoned with. In The Blue Parakeet, McKnight again touches the hearts and minds of today’s Christians, this time challenging them to rethink how to read the Bible, not just to puzzle it together into some systematic theology but to see it as a Story that we’re summoned to enter and to carry forward in our day. In his own inimitable style, McKnight sets traditional and liberal Christianity on its ear, leaving readers equipped, encouraged, and emboldened to be the people of faith they long to be.

Let Go: To Get Peace and Real Joy


François Fénelon - 1973
    Do you struggle through family problems, battle with the tensions of raising children, or find yourself overwhelmed with pressures on the job? Are personal failures and disappointments on the increase as you face each day? What a fountain of life it would be to discover how to let go of those distresses and learn to embrace the joy and peace that God has promised! With amazing insight, Fénelon speaks firmly yet lovingly to those whose lives have been an uphill climb, and reveals just how to Let Go!

May I Have This Dance?


Joyce Rupp - 1992
    Explores twelve major themes, each one followed by prayer suggestions, guided meditations, ideas for reflection, and journal keeping.

Twelve Ordinary Men


John F. MacArthur Jr. - 2002
    Look no further than the twelve disciples whose many weaknesses are forever preserved throughout the pages of the New Testament. Jesus chose ordinary men - fisherman, tax collectors, political zealots - and turned their weakness into strength, producing greatness from utter uselessness. MacArthur draws principles from Christ's careful, hands-on training of the original twelve disciples for today's modern disciple - you.

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament


Mark Vroegop - 2019
    We need to recover the practice of honest spiritual struggle that gives us permission to vocalize our pain and wrestle with our sorrow. Lament avoids trite answers and quick solutions, progressively moving us toward deeper worship and trust.Exploring how the Bible--through the psalms of lament and the book of Lamentations--gives voice to our pain, this book invites us to grieve, struggle, and tap into the rich reservoir of grace and mercy God offers in the darkest moments of our lives.

Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness


C. Baxter Kruger - 2007
    In Across All Worlds, Baxter Kruger brings us face to face with the fact that Jesus has established a very real and personal relationship with us in our darkness. Jesus accepts us and walks with us because he is determined that we come to know His Father with him and life in His embrace.C. Baxter Kruger is the Director of Perichoresis, an international ministry sharing the good news of our adoption in Christ with the world. He and his wife Beth have been married for 25 years and have four children. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree under Professor James B. Torrance in Aberdeen, Scotland. Baxter is the author of seven books, including The Great Dance and Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, and teaches across the United States, Canada and Australia. He is an avid outdoorsman and holds two United States patents for his fishing lure designs. He is the founder and President of Mediator Lures.

Ordering Your Private World


Gordon MacDonald - 1983
    But what about organizing the other side of our lives—the spiritual side?One of the great battlegrounds of the new century is within the private world of the individual.The values of our Western culture incline us to believe that the busy, publicly active person in ministry  is also the most spiritual.Tempted to give imbalanced attention to the public world at the expense of the private, we become involved in more programs, more meetings. Our massive responsibilities at home, work, and church have resulted in a lot of good people on the verge of collapse.In this timely update of his classic Ordering Your Private World, Gordon MacDonald equips a new generation to live life from the inside out, cultivating the inner victory necessary for public effectiveness.

The Holy Ghost, Our Greatest Friend: He Who Loves Us Best


Paul O'Sullivan - 1952
    Again and again, he shows us how we are the living temples of the Holy Ghost and how our souls are God's greatest masterpiece—because they are made in His own Image and Likeness. Of the Divine Tenant we possess within us, Fr. O'Sullivan says, “The Holy Ghost does not only give His wonderful help to Apostles, to martyrs, to missionaries, but to all Christians without exception, if only they will ask Him as they should." (Page 39). The greatest tragedy, he points out, is that many Christians never pray to this Divine Guest within their souls. Therefore, it is to help us understand, at least a little, the Incomparable Treasure we Christians possess within ourselves as a result of Baptism that the author has written this book – but also to teach us how to help ourselves in the most unfailing way by praying often and fervently to the Holy Ghost for assistance in all our needs.