A Full-Hearted Life
Following Jesus in This Secular Age
Published December 2024
Everyone must ask life’s big questions. Even people who reject any hint of the supernatural and insist that nothing exists apart from matter will have to find meaning for themselves. To put this another way, the defining mark of our secular age is not the absence of belief, but rather the effect on our consciousness of the sheer number of competing belief systems. That effect is fragilization.
And so, belief is fragile. We don’t have to believe what we believe. We could believe something else entirely.
This book articulates how believing in Jesus gives us a sense of who we are, why we’re here, what the good life is, and how to move toward that good life.
This is not traditional apologetics, offering logical proofs that God exists or that Jesus is God incarnate or that all those alternative belief systems are false. Put simply, the aim of this book is to help you see for yourself and to explain to others how Christian belief and Christian practice can make life meaningful.
About the Author
Jake Owensby
Jake Owensby is a writer and speaker whose work focuses on the spirituality of everyday life. He is the Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Western Louisiana and author of five books including Looking for God in Messy Places, A Resurrection Shaped Life, and Your Untold Story.
Before entering ordained ministry, he earned the PhD in philosophy from Emory University and served as a professor at Jacksonville University. He has always been interested in how people find meaning and purpose in their ordinary lives. And he sees himself as a kind of midwife, helping his readers and those who participate in his workshops give birth to their own sense of what makes life worth living.
He has three adult children and lives in Alexandria, Louisiana, with his wife, Joy, and rescue pup, Gracie.
He blogs about looking for God in messy places at JakeOwensby.com.