cover image The Ransomed Heart: A Collection of Devotional Readings

The Ransomed Heart: A Collection of Devotional Readings

John Eldredge. Nelson Books, $21.99 (374pp) ISBN 978-0-7852-0706-1

Readers who enjoyed Eldredge's popular works Wild at Heart, Waking the Dead and Epic will be thrilled with this attractive devotional, which takes key passages from Eldredge's six books and presents them in a digestible daily format. The 365 readings run only a paragraph or two and feature Eldredge's trademark conversational style. Although Eldredge has been criticized for writing the same basic book several times, in this compilation that weakness is an asset, because the excerpts have an interior consistency and coherence one doesn't often see. There are some great nuggets to chew on: from ""The Journey of Desire"" passage: ""For most Christians, heaven is a backup plan. Our primary work is finding a life we can at least get a little pleasure from here. Heaven is an investment we've made, like Treasury bonds or a retirement account, which we're hoping will take care of us in the future sometime, but which we do not give much thought to at present."" The devotional closes with three prayers that have helped Eldredge in his Christian journey.