Seeking a simpler spirit - Hardcover

Deford, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0762101288 ISBN 13: 9780762101283

Publisher: Readers Digest, 1999

Synopsis

Using the principles of simplicity, the author of The Simpler Life presents readers with a fresh perspective on becoming more spiritual and provides a series of daily prayers and meditations to help them in their search for a meaningful life.

About this title

About the Author

Deborah DeFord, author, editor, and teacher, lives in Connecticut, enjoying her career, husband, three children, four grandchildren, friends, and a very unusual cat. Her own spiritual search informs the thoughtful, realistic approach she presents in Seeking a Simpler Spirit. DeFord is also the author of The Simpler Life from Reader's Digest.

From the Back Cover

Through simple lessons and meditations, discover how to: * Make room for God in a busy life * Approach God with sincerity, humility, and ardor * Recognize God's presence in the world and in your daily life * Develop the skills and disciplines of spiritual growth * Worship God from the heart * Build a Meaningful dialogue with God * Overcome spiritual obstacles and survive bad times with grace and acceptance * See the world anew and share God-centered love with others.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

This is a book for seekers.

You may come to the quest with a lifelong history of religious involvement. Or you may be new to the idea of seeking to bring God into your daily life. This book asks only that you believe God to be personal and present in human lives, and One who welcomes our search for a divine connection.

This is a book for people longing to tap the deep wellsprings of their spirits. We are pelted daily by messages that promise peace, prosperity, and a happily-ever-after ending to our personal stories. Yet few, if any, of these messages prove reliable guideposts to fulfillment, peace, or joy. In the pages that follow, you will find a realistic, uncomplicated approach to discovering our souls' true home in the presence of the One who formed us.

Each of us brings our own preconceptions to the pursuit of God in our lives. Along with our hopes and longings, we often carry hurts and frustrations, misunderstandings and disappointments. This book offers the opportunity to make a fresh beginning. It lays the groundwork for a personal journey that leads Godward, while suggesting ways to move beyond the barriers-whether they are physical, psychological, emotional, or logistical-that hold us back.

The books is framed in eight chapters, each focused on a single aspect of time alone with God. At the conclusion of each chapter, you'll find seven days of mediations, intended to encourage and inspire your daily time with God and to help you find personal significance in the focus of the chapter. In addition, there are Scripture references, each of which offers further insight and a divine perspective on the nature and character of God and on our potential in relation to God. Use the readings as preparation to speak your heart in the quiet presence of God. And always be ready to listen.

This book does not present a prescription for world peace or personal wealth. It does not promise the answer to questions about suffering or evil or the vagaries of the stock market. What it does provide is a daily discipline that throughout the ages has ushered people like you and me into a deep and lifelong conversation with God.

Please accept the pages that follow as the expression of one's seeker's experience. For the limitations and weaknesses any book surely contains, I ask forgiveness from God and from you. For whatever help it gives, I offer thanks. A book is just a book. Only God can satisfy the hunger in our souls. -D.D.

Edition details

• Publisher: Readers Digest
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0762101288
• ISBN 13: 9780762101283
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 238