Be Not Troubled

For more than 250 years, Abandonment to Divine Providence by Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade has offered inspiration and spiritual balm for those plagued with doubt, anxiety, and fear. Motivated by his own life-changing encounter with this spiritual classic and the popular resurgence in practicing Christian mindfulness, bestselling author and retreat leader Rev. Jeffrey Kirby serves up six meditations, rooted in Caussade’s work, for today’s reader and presents them as a personal retreat. Perfect for anyone looking to renew their trust in God and live freely in the present moment, Be Not Troubled invites you to let go of what you can’t control and discover a place of deep serenity in God. How does the contemporary person who is constantly forced to multitask, is fragmented and torn in different directions, and feels more connection through technology than through face-to-face interaction come to know and experience God’s presence? In Be Not Troubled, Kirby draws on his decades of experience as a popular retreat leader and speaker to offer you the wisdom of Caussade distilled into a six-day personal retreat that equips you to embrace the present moment and shake fear from your mind—all by recognizing the power of God. This process begins with time-tested tools drawn from the renowned spiritual classic Abandonment to Divine Providence, which presents a series of influential spiritual reflections from Caussade, a beloved eighteenth-century French Jesuit. In popularizing this classic for today’s readers, Be Not Troubled rejects a spirituality of fear and shame by introducing you to God as a loving provider who knows you and wills your happiness; guides you in personally surrendering your will to God—an essential step in developing deep faith; helps you see God in the details as you recognize ordinary moments as opportunities to experience God and his love for you; and instructs you in embracing the sacrament of the present moment, dispelling doubt and anxiety from your life. Practical steps, invitations to practice presence, and reflective prayers guide you through these spiritual habits, which are broken out into six days of brief, accessible meditations that can be completed in the midst of your daily life. Rather than the future or the past, and rather than in cyberspace or somewhere else, God is found in this moment and in this place. The present moment can be lived and cherished as a sacrament, a visible sign of invisible graces. And it’s in this sacrament that we can most know ourselves and encounter the living God.

In 1951, with the Second World War not long over and the menace of the Cold War generating anxiety in the West, Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached eight sermons on John 14:1-12 at Westminster Chapel in London. These sermons, presented in Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, were intended to comfort, strengthen, and build up Christians in their "most holy faith" and to bring unbelievers to a knowledge of the only way men and women can face matters of life and death. Lloyd-Jones went through these verses carefully, showing that the way to deal with our fears is first to recognize and confront them and then to realize that the answer is only to be found in the great and unchanging truths of the gospel. Pastors, Lloyd-Jones readers, and anyone needing encouragement will benefit from this work by one of the twentieth century's foremost preachers.

Reflecting on the confusion, shame and grief brought on by her mother's schizophrenia, Amy Simpson provides a bracing look at the social and physical realities of mental illness. Reminding us that people with mental illness are our neighbors and our brothers and sisters in Christ, she explores new possibilities for the church to minister to this stigmatized group.

The author explores dozens of scriptural passages from the psalms, offering personal ideas and insights and sharing his testimony that "no matter what the trouble and trial of the day may be, we start and finish with the eternal truth that God is for us."--

Missio Alliance Essential Reading List Hearts Minds Bookstore's Best Books RELEVANT's Top 10 Books Englewood Review of Books Best Books When Soong-Chan Rah planted an urban church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his first full sermon series was a six-week exposition of the book of Lamentations. Preaching on an obscure, depressing Old Testament book was probably not the most seeker-sensitive way to launch a church. But it shaped their community with a radically countercultural perspective. The American church avoids lament. But lament is a missing, essential component of Christian faith. Lament recognizes struggles and suffering, that the world is not as it ought to be. Lament challenges the status quo and cries out for justice against existing injustices. Soong-Chan Rah's prophetic exposition of the book of Lamentations provides a biblical and theological lens for examining the church's relationship with a suffering world. It critiques our success-centered triumphalism and calls us to repent of our hubris. And it opens up new ways to encounter the other. Hear the prophet's lament as the necessary corrective for Christianity's future. A Resonate exposition of the book of Lamentations.