Longing for God: Seven Paths of Christian Devotion
2010 Christianity Today Book Award winner
2010 Golden Canon Leadership Book Award winner
Think of the moment you last experienced God. Do you know him that closely in this moment? Truly experiencing the love of God gives us a taste of his goodness and his love for us, but often those moments are fleeting. We get distracted by life. Our awareness and understanding fade while our longing to experience him that way again increases. In these pages you can begin to fill that longing by developing your capacity to receive and respond to God's love. Spiritual formation is the process through which one's inner self is opened to the work of the Holy Spirit, who forms us into the image of the Son. Here Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe, both experienced leaders in spiritual formation, introduce you to people from the past who have known God deeply. Each person helps you to grasp one of the seven primary paths to intimacy with God that have been developed throughout Christian history. Chapters are divided into sections, each segment surrounding a key figure and concluding with a reflection and prayer. This rich resource can guide you into the same deep intimacy with God, opening you to the Spirit's work of transformation. A Renovaré Resource.
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Longing for God: Seven Paths of Christian Devotion
2010 Christianity Today Book Award winner
2010 Golden Canon Leadership Book Award winner
Think of the moment you last experienced God. Do you know him that closely in this moment? Truly experiencing the love of God gives us a taste of his goodness and his love for us, but often those moments are fleeting. We get distracted by life. Our awareness and understanding fade while our longing to experience him that way again increases. In these pages you can begin to fill that longing by developing your capacity to receive and respond to God's love. Spiritual formation is the process through which one's inner self is opened to the work of the Holy Spirit, who forms us into the image of the Son. Here Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe, both experienced leaders in spiritual formation, introduce you to people from the past who have known God deeply. Each person helps you to grasp one of the seven primary paths to intimacy with God that have been developed throughout Christian history. Chapters are divided into sections, each segment surrounding a key figure and concluding with a reflection and prayer. This rich resource can guide you into the same deep intimacy with God, opening you to the Spirit's work of transformation. A Renovaré Resource.
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Longing for God: Seven Paths of Christian Devotion
Think of the moment you last experienced God. Do you know him that closely in this moment? Truly experiencing the love of God gives us a taste of his goodness and his love for us, but often those moments are fleeting. We get distracted by life. Our awareness and understanding fade while our longing to experience him that way again increases. In these pages you can begin to fill that longing by developing your capacity to receive and respond to God's love. Spiritual formation is the process through which one's inner self is opened to the work of the Holy Spirit, who forms us into the image of the Son. Here Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe, both experienced leaders in spiritual formation, introduce you to people from the past who have known God deeply. Each person helps you to grasp one of the seven primary paths to intimacy with God that have been developed throughout Christian history. Chapters are divided into sections, each segment surrounding a key figure and concluding with a reflection and prayer. This rich resource can guide you into the same deep intimacy with God, opening you to the Spirit's work of transformation. A Renovaré Resource.
Richard J. Foster is the founder of Renovaré. He is the author of several books, including Streams of Living Water, Prayer, Freedom of Simplicity, Sanctuary of the Soul, and Celebration of Discipline, which has sold over two million copies worldwide; he is coauthor (with Gayle Beebe) of Longing for God. He and his wife, Carolynn, make their home near Denver, Colorado.
Gayle D. Beebe (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University) is president of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and past president of Spring Arbor University in Spring Arbor, Michigan. He served as one of the general editors for The Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible. He is also author of The Interpretive Role of the Religious Community in Friedrich Schleiermacher and Josiah Royce and coeditor of Keeping the Concept in the Social and Natural Sciences; Keeping the Concept in the Philosophical, Practical and Productive Arts; A Concept to Keep; and Religion and Its Relevance in Post-Modernism.
Preface Introduction: Recovering the Seven Paths of Christian Devotion 1. Path One: The Right Ordering of Our Love for God Origen of Alexandria: The Quest for Perpetual Communion with God Augustine of Hippo: Loving God with Our Body, Mind and Heart Bernard of Clairvaux: The Desire for God and the Ascent of Pure Love Blaise Pascal: The Right Ordering of Body, Mind and Heart 2. Path Two: The Spiritual Life as Journey Evagrius of Ponticus: From Deadly Thoughts to Godly Virtues George Herbert: Weaving Life into a Meaningful Whole John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Path to God Thomas Merton: Finding Our Home with God 3. Path Three: The Recovery of Knowledge of God Lost in the Fall Thomas Aquinas: Learning to Love and Know God Fully Martin Luther: Growing in the Freedom of God's Love John Calvin: Knowing God and Knowing Ourselves 4. Path Four: Intimacy with Jesus Christ Francis of Assisi: The World as Our Cloister St. Bonaventure: The Fullness of Life in Christ Thomas à Kempis: Imitating Christ Ignatius of Loyola: Guided by the Mysteries of Christ 5. Path Five: The Right Ordering of Our Experiences of God Julian of Norwich: Enfolded in the Goodness of God George Fox: Learning to Follow the Light of Christ Within John Wesley: The Role of Our Religious Experiences in Knowing God Friedrich Schleiermacher: Making Sense of Our Experiences of God 6. Path Six: Action and Contemplation John Cassian: Balancing the Active and Contemplative Life Benedict of Nursia: Learning to Live by a Rule Gregory the Great: Living the Active Life Contemplatively 7. Path Seven: Divine Ascent Pseudo-Dionysius: Loving God through the Threefold Way The Cloud of Unknowing: The Sharp Darts of Longing Love Teresa of Avila: Entering Christ's Mansion John of the Cross: Illuminating the Dark Night Conclusion Appendix 1: Pre-Christian Influences on Our Life with God Appendix 2: Christian Women and Spirituality Appendix 3: The Contribution of the Eastern Orthodox Church Acknowledgments Notes Index
"Reading Longing for God is like stepping into an unfamiliar room and finding a wonderful group of vital and brilliant brothers and sisters in the way of Christ, reaching out to us from across the ages and from all kinds of personal characteristics and circumstances. We need to reach back and let them help us to know the fullness of life in the kingdom of God for who and where we are now. The spiritual impoverishment so widespread today among Christians is largely due to disconnection from 'the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.' The authors have opened doors into 'the unsearchable riches of Christ.' Let's go in." — Dallas Willard, author of The Divine Conspiracy
Joshua Choonmin Kang
"Today we are in a state of flooding and yet have no water to drink. It is difficult to find authentic principles that satisfy our spiritual thirst. This is the very book that greatly helps those who are thirsty, worn out, burned out and tired of religious malpractices that are not truly spiritual. Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe show us how our faith ancestors found the wellspring of the deep and authentic spirituality and drew the fresh water that cleared their thirst. If you are looking for an authentic spiritual formation manual, you must read this book that will take you to the 'never-ending presence of God' experience!" — Joshua Choonmin Kang, author of Deep-Rooted in Christ, and pastor of OMC, Los Angeles
Jack W. Hayford
"Living amid the rush of today's world--especially as one who leads in today's church--I need the wisdom of past saints. Their will to nakedly live in the light of God's Word distinguishes them from our tendencies to clothe ourselves in mere success, recognition or knowledge. Foster and Beebe afford us a resource to 'strip down'--to till our hearts, review our priorities and invite the Holy Spirit to plow our souls.His rain on such prepared soil is the key to any lasting fruitfulness in life or leadership." — Jack W. Hayford, chancellor, The King's Seminary, Los Angeles
John Ortberg
"This is a feast for the mind and the soul.This is the best and richest of Christian thinking and soul-making made accessible to everybody. It would be very hard to read this without having your heart grow." — John Ortberg, author and pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church
Walter Brueggemann
"This marvelous source book by Foster and Beebe invites us to a pilgrimage toward God. It takes us deeply and slowly into the old trusts of our fathers and mothers in faith. The book will be a valuable detailed reminder that the journey is not an easy one, and that we are not the first ones who have walked that way. The book meditates on the old habits whereby one may break from the present rush in order to be refreshed and transformed by a holiness that is beyond every quick fix and every surface offer." — Walter Brueggemann, author of The Prophetic Imagination
Eugene H. Peterson
"Deep wells of living water dug by our ancestors have been filled with religious rubble and trash by American consumer spirituality. Like Isaac, digging again the wells of his father that the Philistines stopped up, Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe have cleaned out these deep sources of Christian nurture and formation for us. It turns out that there are wells all over the place. Use this book for your bucket." — Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message
