Teach Us To Want: About the Book and Author

July 16, 2014 by InterVarsity Press

Now Featured at the Patheos Book Club
Teach Us To Want
Longing, Ambition and the Life of Faith
By Jen Pollock Michel

About the Book

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."

About the Author

Jen Pollock Michel is a regular contributor for Christianity Today's Her.

meneutics and writes for Today in the Word, published by The Moody Bible Institute. Jen earned her BA in French from Wheaton College and her MA in literature from Northwestern University. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and five children.

You can follow Jen on Twitter @jenpmichel or you can find her at jenpollockmichel.com.

7/16/2014 4:00:00 AM

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