RENEWAL OF THE HEART
: 40 Days with Francis de Sales’s The Devout Life

In Renewal of the Heart, award-winning author Lisa Samson invites readers into a fresh, contemporary encounter with Francis de Sales’s classic An Introduction to the Devout Life. Written for ordinary believers living in the pressure of work, family, society, and modern disillusionment, this forty-day devotional reimagines devotion not as religious performance but as a lived relationship with the God who is present in every moment. Samson pairs lightly modernized selections from de Sales with Scripture, personal reflection, and daily prayer, guiding readers toward a faith marked by love, trust, charity, humility, and interior freedom.

For Christians weary of fear-based religion, culture-war spirituality, or a sacred/secular divide, Renewal of the Heart offers a gentler and more demanding way: the way of Jesus, practiced in daily life. Readers are invited to release false identities, return to their belovedness, serve others without transaction, and discover that devotion is possible not by escaping the world, but by meeting God within it.

Warm, poetic, candid, and spiritually provocative, this book is ideal for personal devotion, small groups, spiritual formation cohorts, and readers drawn to Christian classics made accessible for today.