The Devoted Mind: Seeking God’s Face in a World of Distraction

Kris A. Lundgaard

Reviewed by: Philip B. Strong

The Devoted Mind: Seeking God’s Face in a World of Distraction, by Kris A. Lundgaard. P&R, 2023. Paperback, 168 pages, $17.99. Reviewed by OP pastor Philip B. Strong.

What a blessing in God’s kind providence to me to be asked to review this book at a time when I found myself to be distracted by news, media, and hardships. The Devoted Mind: Seeking God’s Face in a World of Distraction touched on what I thought it would, but it went so much deeper than I had anticipated.

This book addresses a phenomenon that is all too often experienced in Reformed churches today: people who have a knowledge of God that stops short of a delight in our God. In his introduction Mr. Lundgaard asks, “How can our cold minds extend God’s warm welcome and taste his joy—not in eternity but in this troubling world? That’s what I’d like to know.” The book aims to answer this question, and it did so quite successfully.

In the introduction, Lundgaard makes known that the book is a rewriting of the Puritan John Owen’s work on spiritual mindedness. Owen’s focus was on the Apostle Paul’s blessing of the devoted mind, “To be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6 KJV).

Lundgaard represents Owen’s teachings through three themes: the devoted mind, seeking God’s face, and the Beloved. Lundgaard explains each. By “devoted mind,” he means “a mind set apart for the Lord . . . a mind completely given over to him and to his service . . . suggest[ing] a lover whose full attention has been captured by her Beloved.” By “seeking God’s face,” he means the “pursuit of his intimate presence, a sense of closeness, a clearer and deeper personal knowledge of him, and an assurance of his acceptance, love and blessing. We are finding our way back to the intimacy of Eden, a journey now possible in Christ who is the ‘new and living Way’ into God’s holy presence.” And with the final theme, “the Beloved,” he means that our triune God or Christ himself is the object of the devoted mind—”not in an academic sense but as the ultimate object of our desire, the One whose presence we seek.”

The book divides into two sections covering a total of eleven chapters and an introduction, making it ideal for use in a quarterly adult Sunday school class. Part 1 focuses upon contemplation and addresses what the devoted mind is and what it seeks. Part 2 is about inclination and satisfaction, that is, how the devoted mind reaches the goals set forth above.

Lundgaard has brought the riches of John Owen’s labors and meditations and has made them accessible to the everyday Christian in the church. He ends each chapter with a section called “Reflection and Praxis,” in which the reader is challenged by questions and practices to aid in implementing what he or she has read. This book is both theologically substantive and immensely practical.