Review: Teach Us To Want by Jen Pollock Michel
Jen Pollock Michel’s book Teach Us To Want: Longing, Ambition, And The Life Of Faith received Christianity Today’s Book Of The Year Award in 2015, and that fact alone led to me deciding to give it a read. I always enjoy a thoughtful book, and at times it is helpful when others have already indicated a text is worth the read.
Teach Us To Want is definitely a thoughtful book. Based on my reading, Jen Pollock Michel has herself read broadly, and she weaves themes from several classic works into her own narrative. The book is anecdotal, personal, vulnerable, and very thoughtful with regard to the internal wrestling that a person of faith encounters with regard to discerning which desires emanate from within and which are God-given directive or calling. Jen, through her own story shares very candidly both the good and the bad sides of desire, and how it can be either destructive or redemptive depending on the source.
In the early chapters of the book, she alludes to one of my personal favorite authors, and one who I believe had a significant influence on the rhythm of the book, Annie Dillard. Dillard’s book Pilgrim At Tinker Creek is a book about faith, environment, place, and time. Pollock Michel’s book extends along a much longer duration than Dillard’s single year, and also extends across a variety of places, but, she builds a framework for exploring desire from both the via positiva and the via negative.
To be honest, when I first started the book, I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy it, but it is incredibly well written, and I found myself looking forward to each new area of content. In particular, I really appreciated her chapter on prayer and its focus on how God’s willingness to provide as well as his encouragement for us to ask.
Looking for a thoughtful, vulnerable narrative to explore? Give Jen Pollock Michel’s book a read, and consider more deeply what it means to call out to the Creator of the universe with all of our wants.