There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. I invite you to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry, and to say with some simple fast: "This much, O God, I want you." Our appetites dictate the direction of our lives - whether it be the cravings of our stomachs, the passionate desire for possessions or power, or the longings of our spirits for God. But for the Christian, the hunger for anything besides God can be an arch-enemy. While our hunger for God - and Him alone - is the only thing that will bring victory. Do you have that hunger for Him? As John Piper puts it: "If we don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great." If we are full of what the world offers, then perhaps a fast might express, or even increase, our soul's appetite for God. Between the dangers of self-denial and self-indulgence is this path of pleasant pain called fasting. It is the path John Piper invites you to travel in this book. For when God is the supreme hunger of your heart, He will be supreme in everything. And when you are most satisfied in Him, He will be most glorified in you.

Combining the best of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions, Kirvan explores the lives and writings of ten great mystics from Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century to Thomas Merton today.

This book, the fourth in The Upper Room’s bestselling “Guide to Prayer” series, offers a simple pattern of daily prayer built around weekly themes and organized by the Christian church year. Each week follows this pattern: Affirmation Psalm Psalm Prayer Daily Scripture Readings Silence Daily Reading Reflection (Silent or Written) Prayers Offering of Self to God Blessing The daily readings are drawn from the history of Christian spirituality and feature such writers as Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Sue Monk Kidd, Douglas Steere, Jan Richardson, Trevor Hudson, Wendy M. Wright, and many others. Beautifully bound in a leather-like cover, A Guide to Prayer for All Who Walk with God makes a perfect gift and a reliable companion for anyone seeking to deepen a steady life of prayer.

In this first book on the topic written from a Catholic perspective, award-winning writer Mary DeTurris Poust offers personal, hard-won wisdom on the complex relationship between food and spirituality in Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image, and God. Poust draws on the rich appreciation of meals she first gained at the tables of her childhood in an Italian-American family, leading readers into reflection on the connections between eating, self-image, and spirituality. Like Geneen Roth in Women, Food and God, but from a uniquely Catholic point of view, Poust helps readers spot ways they use food to avoid or ignore their real desires—for acceptance, understanding, friendship, love, and, indeed, for God. Poust draws from scripture and the great Catholic prayer forms and devotions to assist readers in making intentional changes in their use of food. She also offers reflections on fasting, eating in solidarity with the poor, vegetarianism, and the local food movement.

This volume evolved experientially: the fruit of fifty-five years of solitude by a contemporary Coptic Orthodox desert monk besieged by prayer. Fr Matta's prayer life initially was formed under the direction of the sayings of the Russian Fathers, and later expanded under the direction of other Fathers, both Eastern and Western. He imparts to his readers "a whole course" on prayer.

From the heart of one of Christendom's foremost prayer warriors, author Lynne Hammond exhorts readers to remain hungry for their inheritance...God's renewing presence.We were not created to run around from crisis to crisis, putting out one fire after another in our lives. That was never God's plan. His plan was that we would be transformed by His presence to live in a perpetual state of preparedness, always equal to the task of fulfilling His good plan for our lives.Hammond gives Bible character parallels and present day testimonies answering how to be transformed in His presence through daily fellowship.One testimony reads, The greatest thing He has ever done for me is keep me in perpetual deliverance through my fellowship with Him.

A soul desiring to give itself in love to God faces great challenges that require understanding and some encouraging advice. Written in a style of short and effective meditations on prayer and contemplative spirituality, the concise reflections in this book address the heart of a soul's interior response to God. God's desire to draw souls to a deeper gift of themselves is inseparable from his desire to draw them into a deeper encounter with the sacred mystery of his presence. Offering an abundance of insights into the value of silence, deep faith, trust and interior surrender to God, Father Haggerty also illumines the link between contemplation and love for poverty and the poor, and makes a strong appeal to the importance of prayer as the primary answer to the crisis of faith that afflicts so many people today. The longing of souls for a deeper contemplative encounter with God is indeed a sign of the times. When it is nurtured properly and begins to burn as a passion of the soul, the love for prayer becomes a lifelong quest.

Using the imagery of the psalms as a backdrop, author Calvin Miller explores our hunger for intimacy with our Holy God. Insisting that the pathway to God's holiness is through a journey into our own selves, Miller yet maintains that our end is not to know ourselves but to know Christ. Our hunger for the Holy leads us to a table for two in a quiet wilderness. Here, Miller says, we meet as "ardent lovers in the lonely desert of the human heart. There, he speaks as much as we do, and even when both of us say nothing, we are rapt in a welded oneness." In Miller's inimitable style, he graciously invites us to satisfy our hunger for the holiness of God as we meditate on the psalms and are challenged to know the God of the universe in a personal, intimate relationship.

Can prayer become a favourite enjoyment? Absolutely. God is the guarantor of prayer joy and he invites us to a journey beyond duty and sameness. It means being stretched and changed, but we get to live the prayer enjoyment adventure he designed for us. Prayer is the core and the cutting edge of life in Christ and is much too important to lose through non-enjoyment. The Lord has given us a frame for enjoyable prayer: his constant presence. In that frame we become pray-ers marked by raised heart living and hunger for him. Part I of the book captures the “Wow!” of life in God’s company and explains how awareness of his presence can make a difference to prayer life. Part II gives the how-to of breaking new ground in enjoyable prayer. The Lord is the first speaker in the prayer relationship and learning to shape our praying as a response that agrees with him is a mix of desire and discipline. The reader gets to explore that mix by following four pathways for using Scripture to shape prayer. But even shaped praying can become dull and tired, unless we stretch our prayer language to give the heart a bigger expression. The section on visual language explains how. Praying together can be powerful and enjoyable when done in agreement. The agreement-building keys given will enhance corporate prayer, and can be used in large and small group settings. Growing in prayer enjoyment is not about self-indulgence; it’s a journey for God’s pleasure. The book climaxes with a call to live missional prayer lives, to be ‘pray-ers on the move’ who are passionate about voicing responses to the Lord in any place and at any cost, for the joy it brings him.