Also by this author: The Crescent Stone, The Heartwood Crown, The Story King, Loving Disagreement: Fighting for Community through the Fruit of the Spirit
Published by NavPress on August 3, 2021
Genres: Non-Fiction, Christian Life, Devotional
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The Journey to Love is your first step toward learning to accept love from others and to love those around you.
Love. Real, experiential love is ever-present in movies. But in real life, finding love in our everyday lives and relationships is elusive. In this collection of 40 short, story-driven readings, Matt Mikalatos shows you how to open yourself to experiencing love, to become aware of love in the world around you, and to set aside control to embrace the wild, untamed vulnerability of loving and being loved.
This is an easy book to read over 40 days-or finish in a couple of hours. Reflection questions and exercises will help you process the teachings, whether you ponder internally, journal your journey, or discuss with friends. The goal of this trek is to find yourself more loving and to be able to receive more love. Are you ready to join the Journey to Love?
Matt Mikalatos is one of my favorite people that I’ve never met in person. As someone with a lot of online friends, that’s not a categorization I take lightly. His words are constantly gracious, loving, challenging, and inclusive. In my mind, there’s not a better person to write a book called Journey to Love than Matt.
It’s appropriate that this book is, in many ways, a love letter. In the introduction, Matt talks about his friend Shasta who recently passed following a long-fought battle with cancer. When I die, she had asked him, tell people they’re loved. Journey to Love is more than just a book. It’s a kept promise that weaves through stories and reflections both personal and spiritual, straddling the gap between memoir and devotional.
Journey to Love is written in eight parts, each divided into five reflective chapters. Each part has its own theme. First, Mikalatos prepares you for the journey. Then he defines what love is and is not. From there, he tells you of love’s power and barriers to love that exist. He reflects upon the love of God and the power of love to change the world. Then he concludes with devotional thoughts on having the strength and vulnerability to love. Along the way, you get more than a glimpse of Mikalatos’ life and how radical love expresses itself through the way he and his family live. And you get to know Shasta. Her story is more than just the hook or the inspiration. The value of her life is at the core of these reflections, allowing the book a frank, honest, personal look into deep and committed friendship.
We all need a friend like Matt. And we all need a friend like Shasta. The lessons that Matt teaches, reflections on lessons that he’s learned, are simple but transformative. Each chapter ends with a reflection and an exercise. And some of the exercises aren’t easy! They’ll stretch you. It’s one thing to read about radical love in theory. It’s another to be challenged to put it into practice. Not since Francis Chan’s Crazy Love have I read such an honest, compelling invitation to radical love. Journey to Love is a book that you could speed through in an hour. Don’t. Savor it. Take it day by day. Put Mikalatos to the test by answering his reflective questions and working out his challenges. It’ll be transformational. I guarantee it.
