ordering your private world -- a book review

Gordon MacDonald's Ordering Your Private World (revised and updated) is a modern spiritual classic that explores the disciplines necessary to order our minds and hearts and spirits in a world that wants to keep us distracted amidst so much chaos in the world.  That distraction, MacDonald is right to point out, creates an inward chaos when we have not learned the habits like keeping time ("Sabbathing") that go into living an intentional Christian life.

Ordering Your Private World rejects the "quick fixes" that pass for Christian spirituality and instead urges us, like gardeners, to take intentional, delicate care of our inner lives:

Many of us are tempted to reach out for a sort of 'quick fix' that makes God seem real and more intimate.  Some feel deeply enriched if they are caused to feel terribly guilty by a preacher who angrily thunders forth with accusations and denunciations.  Others quest after emotional experiences that lift them out of themselves into ecstatic levels.  Sometimes one looks about in a so-called contemporary worship service and wonders what is really happening as people get caught up in the rhythmic, unbelievably loud, repetitive music.  Is it worship, or is it a hypnotic experience that simply helps one forget the difficulties or the routines of real life outside the building.

That intentional care comes through the disciplines of solitude and silence; regular listening to God; the experience of reflection and meditation; and prayer as worship and intercession.

Ordering Your Private World is now a modern classic updated for the new world of social media and smart phones.  
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I received a free copy of this book from the Handlebar Blogging Program in exchange for my honest review here.