You Were Made for Love: Embracing the Life You Were Meant to Live

Carlson straddles two professional worlds as the pastor of an Evangelical Free Church and a part-time family physician. His propensity for offering compassionate care and practical counsel to church folk and patients alike shines through in this book, which exudes substantive and hopeful inspiration. Similar to Max Lucado's easy-on-the-heartstrings style, Carlson provides sound theological truth intermixed with true stories of faith-pursuing men and women. He focuses first upon understanding where love comes from as cited in 1 John 4:7–21, then explores what love looks like from the classic love passage in 1 Corinthians 13 and concludes with learning ways love grows best as found in Isaiah 58:1–12. Carlson touches on Christians' obligations to see commitments through, humbly defer to others, harness the power of a gentle spirit, sacrifice in costly ways to be kind and develop a robust trust in God. One particularly moving lesson speaks of the "compelling agents of transformation" that the words and actions of kind people represent to a hurting, broken world. Carlson proposes that people will not listen to a Christian message until they see it first in a human life. Evangelicals from every camp will find comfort in this book, and be sparked to revive their faith after reading it. (Mar.)