This book actually found me through another book. I started listening to Your Powerful Prayers by Susie Larson on audio and I didn’t realize it was just the introduction. John Eldredge chimed in with a view on prayer and it really spoke to me. He mentioned in the introduction that he also published a book about prayer, so I put that book on pause to search for this amazing writer. This led me to find his recent release, Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad.
I didn’t even realize how much I needed this book. Listening to this book put me at ease and made me realize how much I am tired of this pace of life. I gleaned so much from this book that I immediately went to purchase a copy for my bookshelf. This book speaks to the reader and understands the struggle of being a Christian and needing time to pause and focus on what our real purpose is in this life.
John Eldredge cuts to the heart of the matter, uncovering the reasons our souls are weary and our spirits burdened, and offers practical solutions. His clarity, insight, and understanding give ample ways to identify and change our frantic pace of life and reclaim our peace.
He doesn’t just point out our need for rest and connection with our Lord, but he shows us in scripture where God instructed us to seek him for restoration. It’s mind-blowing to remember what our actual purpose is in this life. Our hurried life doesn’t allow time for this, but we need time to slow down and reconnect with God. We need time to give it all up to him.
“You’ve got to release the world; you’ve got to release people, crises, trauma, intrigue, all of it. There has to be sometime in your day where you just let it all go. All the tragedy of the world, the heartbreak, the latest shooting, earthquake—the soul was never meant to endure this. The soul was never meant to inhabit a world like this. It’s way too much. Your soul is finite. You cannot carry the sorrows of the world. Only God can do that. Only he is infinite. Somewhere, sometime in your day, you’ve just got to release it. You’ve got to let it go.”
― John Eldredge, Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad
If you only read one book about your walk with God this year, let it be this one. It restored my soul and gave me encouragement to reconnect with God every day. This book is packed with practical wisdom and encouragement for those wearied and drained by the pace, pain, and problems of our current moment.
About the book:
A REFRESHINGLY SIMPLE GUIDE TO RECOVER YOUR LIFE!
In Get Your Life Back, New York Times bestselling author John Eldredge provides a practical, simple, and refreshing guide to taking your life back.
By practicing a few wonderfully simple practices—or what John calls “graces”—you can begin to recover your soul, disentangle from the tragedies of this broken world, and discover the restorative power of beauty.
Ask yourself:
Are you happy most of the time?
Do you feel deeply loved?
Are you excited about your future?
How often do you feel lighthearted?
After reading this book you will…
Learn how to insert the One Minute Pause into your day
Begin practicing “benevolent detachment” and truly let it all go
Offer kindness toward yourself in the choices you make
Drink in the simple beauty available to you every day
Take realistic steps to unplug from technology overload
These simple practices and others are ready for the taking. You don’t need to abandon your life to get it back. Begin restoring your life here and now. Your soul will thank you for it.
About the author:
John Eldredge is an author (you probably figured that out), a counselor, and teacher. He is also president of Ransomed Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God, recover their own heart in his love, and learn to live in his Kingdom. John grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles (which he hated), and spent his boyhood summers on his grandfather’s cattle ranch in eastern Oregon (which he loved). John met his wife Stasi in high school (in drama class). But their romance did not begin until they each came to faith in Christ, after high school. John earned his undergraduate degree in Theater at Cal Poly, and directed a theater company in Los Angeles for several years before moving to Colorado with Focus on the Family, where he taught at the Focus on the Family Institute.
John earned his master’s degree in Counseling from Colorado Christian University, under the direction of Larry Crabb and Dan Allender. He worked as a counselor in private practice before launching Ransomed Heart in 2000. John and Stasi live in Colorado Springs with their three sons (Samuel, Blaine, and Luke), their golden retriever (Oban), and two horses (Whistle and Kokolo). While all of this is factually true, it somehow misses describing an actual person. He loves the outdoors passionately, and all beauty, Shakespeare, bow hunting, a good cigar, anything having to do with adventure, poetry, March Madness, working in the shop, fly fishing, classic rock, the Tetons, fish tacos, George MacDonald, green tea, buffalo steaks, dark chocolate, wild and open places, horses running, and too much more to name. He also uses the expression “far out” way too much.
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