Gordon MacDonald has revised and updated his classic book that has taken literally a million people on a journey to get serious about living.  In this revised version, MacDonald has gone even further than his original work because he is no longer just the author, but has repeatedly become the practitioner of his own methods.  Faced with hitting a wall of growth in the Christian life, Gordon MacDonald took his own advice and began to grow again.  He shares with us, once again, how this can be possible for any follower of Jesus Christ.

MacDonald uses incredibly poignant illustrations for pointing out not only the needs we all face, but also the solutions for meeting those needs.  For instance, he likens the private world, some call it heart, soul, mind, or some other label, to a potential void beneath an otherwise seemingly normal operating life.  Like the sinkholes that occasionally make the news, a person is going along doing their normal life and then wake up to find their whole life has fallen into a hole.  How did it happen?  Who is to blame?  MacDonald suggests neglecting the private world, which he would say involves all of the areas previously listed, is the cause.  With nothing to hold up the outer life, it falls into the hole where the character, life, spiritual life, and heart should have been.

Dealing with everything from confidence to trust to secret desires for recognition and appreciation, MacDonald delves into our private world in such a way as to cause every reader to wonder if he has been looking in the window to their souls.  He encourages not just an introspection, but a circumspection and a humble submission to God's activity in one's life.  He suggests have people around us that help us to see what we are truly like.  He further suggests establishing a routine of healthy behaviors so that, when faced with a crisis, we are able to respond like we always have.  Like the child piano player asked to play for the family picnic, there is no reason to panic or think that we need to produce a special performance, but merely that we react as we always have.

This revised and updated version of Ordering Your Private World comes with a small group discussion guide.  The questions are far from trite and require some honesty and thought, but are an excellent resource for getting a group of people together to read the book and study its implications for their lives.  It also provides an excellent framework for accountability in everything from pursuing God's dream for my life to spiritual disciplines to taking our walk with Jesus more serious each and every day.

For the reader who thinks that this is just another guilt trip book designed to show off our shortcomings, it is far from that.  It is actually an encouragement from someone who has been there and been there and knows God can get us through.