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Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition and the Life of Faith Kindle Edition

by Jen Pollock Michel (Author), Katelyn Beaty (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 141 ratings
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Logos Bookstores' Best Book in Spirituality/Devotional

Christianity Today Book of the Year

Honorable Mention, Best Book of the Year from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore

As Christians, we're squeamish about desire. Isn't wanting sinful and selfish? Aren't we supposed to find and follow God's will rather than insisting upon our own?

The story of each person is a story of want—desires unmet, hopes dashed, passions pursued and ambitions fulfilled. Our wants cannot be ignored. But when desire is informed by Scripture and re-formed by our spiritual practices, it can root us more deeply in the fundamental belief that God is good and generous and can invite us into active kingdom participation.

Jen Pollock Michel guides us on a journey of understanding who we are when we want, and reintroduces us to a God who gives us the desires of our hearts. That same good God calls us into a new reality in which we seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and we discover our disordered desires burned away while our truest longings are happily fulfilled and purified. The disciples asked Jesus to "Teach us to pray." This book asks, "Teach us to want."

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  1. Print length
    225 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    IVP
  5. Publication date
    June 4, 2014
  6. File size
    4473 KB
  7. Page Flip
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  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[The] thesis that desires are God given and, therefore, have the potential for good is expertly handled by narrator Karyn O'Bryant...Her inflections and dramatic pauses help strengthen Michel's arguments for inviting God into the process of handling desires...O'Bryant's energy and enthusiasm enhance this production. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award."

-- "AudioFile"

"Offers a meditation on what it means to walk the line between dismissing our desires as evil and abandoning ourselves to them. The book's mix of narrative and biblical reflection nudges us into deeper contemplation of our desires, God, and the ends toward which our desires are driving us."

-- "Relevant Magazine"

"Jen Pollock Michel challenges conventional Christian notions about heeding desire. She helps us understand that what we want isn't our enemy but can be one of God's most powerful tools for shaping and directing us. We might easily think of desire as all bad, but Michel argues that desire, rightly understood, should be followed."

-- "Christianity Today"

Review

"Jen Pollock Michel fuses three things that make her book essential reading: deep insight, raw honesty and radiant prose. She's a terrific writer, an agile thinker and―if that were not enough―a fearless witness to her own heart's darkness and light. By inviting me deeply into the mess and beauty of her own story, she has given me courage to step into the mess and beauty of my own―and, with her, to meet afresh the One who awakens, names, purifies and meets all the desires of my heart."

-- Mark Buchanan, author of Your Church Is Too Safe

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00HUCPW2W
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ IVP (June 4, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 4, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4473 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 225 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 141 ratings

About the author

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Jen Pollock Michel

Jen Pollock Michel

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Jen Pollock Michel is the award-winning author of Teach Us to Want, Keeping Place, and Surprised by Paradox. Her fourth book, A Habit Called Faith, released in February 2021. She holds a B.A. in French from Wheaton College and an M.A. in Literature from Northwestern University. An American living in Toronto, Jen is a wife and mother of five. She is the lead editor for Imprint magazine, published by The Grace Centre for the Arts. You can follow Jen on Twitter and Instagram @jenpmichel and also subscribe to her monthly letter at jenpollockmichel.com.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
141 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Clint Walker
5.0 out of 5 stars Teach Us to Pray is a wonderful, readable
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2017
Verified Purchase
Teach Us to Pray is a wonderful, readable, and also intellectually powerful study of the Lord's Prayer as a prayer that trains our desires. Deeply conversational and confessional in nature, Michel takes the Lord's Prayer step by step, at times leading her readers toward conviction of their sinful and unhealthy desires, and at times positively encouraging the readers, reminding them that God made human beings to be desiring creatures.

Throughout Teach Us to Pray Michel reflects and tells stories well. The book is very quotable, and so at the bottom of this post, I will have some quotes I have harvested from the book. Although written by a woman for a line of books directed at women, the book is easy to connect to for people of both genders.

This book deserves to be read for years to come.

"We pray best when we need God most" (p. 197)

"Holiness is formed in us more unspectacularly and more incrementally than we expect--wherever the practice of small everyday faithfulness is required of us" (p. 198)

"Storytelling and story keeping: these are acts of faith. They preserve faithfulness." (p. 189).

"We easily dismiss desire, arguing that the goal of Christian life is obedience" (p. 23).

"The Bible is not just information about God: It is the living voice of God" (p. 47).

"Holy trust believes that whatever God chooses to give is enough" (p. 84)

"To say that God is good is not the same thing as saying that life is good." (p. 101)

"Clarity and certainty are not the soil in which faith grows." (p. 112).

"Desire expressed in prayer risks on grace" (p. 118).

"In asking for God's provision we're admitting our inability to self-sustain" (p. 127).
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Int'l traveler
4.0 out of 5 stars Good for both reflection and discussion
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2015
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This book is a reflection on how to make our desires true to our hearts - and also to God's heart. A number of the chapters employ a key phrase from the Lord's Prayer (see Matthew ch 6 or Luke 11, if needed) - often quite effectively. The author is honest in her own struggles with desires, with living out her faith, and with the tension between her desires and needs and those of others. Recommend reading - enjoyed by our small group lunch-time book club.
4 people found this helpful
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Liz Ditty
5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book- WITH FRIENDS!
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2016
Verified Purchase
This book has been healing and inspiring at the same time. There is a tough dance between being suspicious of our desires and trusting them as one of the truest parts of ourselves. Jen Pollock Michel does an incredible job navigating the interior world of desire and inviting us to discover (and trust!) our truest God-given desires. I am really disappointed that I read this book alone and NOT in a book club because there is so much of it that I wanted to discuss with friends. I may have to start my own group. A rare mix of thinking, feeling and WANTING. So. Good.
6 people found this helpful
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Carolyn
5.0 out of 5 stars You will want to read and share with others!
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2014
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Teach Us to Want offers a unique, honest and refreshing examination of the desires, longings and ambitions of the Christian life. It explores how those desires can be reshaped and formed by God to be used for the good of others and for God's glory. Readers will enjoy Jen Pollock Michel's beautiful writing style, her gift of words, her authenticity, and the way she weaves together her story with biblical truth and thought-provoking quotes from a variety of sources. This is a book you will enjoy reading, that will challenge your thinking, and that you will want to share with others.
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Made me think...
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2017
Verified Purchase
This book definitely made me reconsider the usefulness and application of desire. I am planning to read it again because it is best read uninterrupted. (i.e. It is difficult to follow the author's thoughts and stories relating back to desire/wanting if the book is read in small sections.) It needs to be taken in as a whole. This would be a good book for a women's Bible Study or to read and discuss in a Book Club.
2 people found this helpful
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Krieger Family Finds
4.0 out of 5 stars I loved that she didn't shy away from our sinful/fleshly desires ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2016
Verified Purchase
I chose Teach Us To Want for our young moms Bible study to go through together to learn more about desire. I know desire is not often spoken of in Christian circles so it intrigued me. Myself and the women in our group praised this book for the author's authenticity about motherhood, writing, and seeking God on his desires for her life. I loved that she didn't shy away from our sinful/fleshly desires and hit hard on that with Scripture. We paired this book with the author's Rightnow Media video teaching "Teach Us To Want" and it was a wonderful compliment.

I will say also that this book does take time to go through and really ingest it all. When you're reading, you'll want to make sure you have time to process the author's thoughts. You may also need to re-read to make sure you are grasping the content. All in all, I think it's a great book to begin thinking about your own desires and what God might be calling you to. You will come away with new perspectives and be excited to pursue God's will in your life. I really enjoyed the author.
7 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book!
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2015
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This has to be one of my favorite books (and I've read many). Jenn Pollock Michel proposes ideas on wanting/longing that never occurred to me, putting it in the context of desire as a God-given gift. Her prose is beautiful, vivid and evocative. I don't often read books more than once, but this one falls in the category of worthy to be read and re-read.
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misplaced-from-seattle
5.0 out of 5 stars We should all self-examine so elegantly...
Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2014
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This is a very well organized and deeply thoughtful journey exploring the desires that tug on us all, through the lens of this author's personal history. Jen marshals her considerable talent to examine what may well be the essence of what it means to be human -- to WANT (stuff, recognition, love... fill in your own blank here) -- and frames it securely within our aspirations for relationship with God. Toss any reservations aside - the title of the book fails to plumb the richness of the text between the covers.
Bravo, Mme. Michel. Thank you for giving yourself permission to write this book. :)
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Bruce
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on June 2, 2016
Verified Purchase
Very good material. It digs into the core motivations of our lives.
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jesslin
3.0 out of 5 stars good content, tough read
Reviewed in Canada on June 5, 2018
Verified Purchase
I bought this book to read with a book club after having read "The Liturgy of the Ordinary" by another author (but this was recommended by Amazon as something similar). We all agreed in our book club that we liked the idea and the drive of the book but it was hard to follow and tough slugging. We enjoyed the personal stories and even the theological conversations but found they weren't tied in well together. There were many parts we did not understand why they were even in the book. It seemed like it lacked a strong editor.

I loved the first two chapters and the last chapter because I resonated with them deeply. There's great content in here however all 8 of us would not have continued reading the book if we didn't have the book club around it because of the way it's assembled/written. It would have been better as a memoire style, I think.
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Janice Eckert
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on September 28, 2017
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Love this book
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