5 Beautiful Devotionals for Lent

On reading our way through the season

This week’s post is a re-run from my blog, Little Book, Big Story, first published back in 2018, but . . . plus one! Enjoy!

We have one window in our living room—one window highly sought after by the cats, who get their best bird views there—and it’s in that window sill that I heap the books I’m currently reading. This is a terrible place for books—they fall when you bump them or when you put the blinds down (or when you lunge at a bird), and they block a small portion of coveted daylight. But it’s close to the armchair where I like to read, and so that is where the books stay.

And with Lent upon us, a handful of the books in that sill are Easter-related, which made me think of other Easter-related books you might like, which made me think that a post about Easter reading for you, dear grown-up reading this blog, might be well received. This list is a short one, but I’m sure you have other books worthy of joining its ranks. I would love to hear about them in the comments.

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Comforts From the Cross, by Elyse Fitzpatrick

This devotional isn’t marketed for Lent and I didn’t plan to read it for Lent, but I did start reading it and it struck me that it is, in fact, perfectly Lent-worthy. Each reading describes some new aspect the gospel—the beauty of it, how it transforms our lives—in Fitzpatrick’s warm, grace-filled voice. Familiarity may tempt us to grow deaf to the melody of the gospel, but Fitzpatrick reminds us that the Lord plays endless variations upon it in our lives, and that that melody will never grow repetitive to those who pay attention. Comforts From the Cross highlights some of those variations, and the result is stunning.

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The Valley of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett

The Valley of Vision is a collection of Puritan prayers and devotions written by a plethora of authors whose names occasionally end with “Spurgeon,” “Edwards,” or “Bunyan.” You can see by the condition of the cover that this is an oft-frequented book at our house (or at least one that got knocked off my nightstand and lost under the bed for a while), and I’m reading it this Lent with this guide for praying through The Valley of Vision.

I’m two weeks in and I love it already: these little breaks for prayer reorient my heart every few hours, and I need that. (It’s true that I pray on the stairwell, often with one or two daughters in my lap, poking my face and asking me what I’m doing, but praying in the midst of that is perfect training for praying through the greater storms of life. Right?)

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Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, by John Piper

You thought there was just the one reason, did you? Nope. In fifty short chapters, John Piper lays out fifty illuminating reasons why Jesus suffered and died for us. What this is, really, is fifty reasons to praise God for his redemption!¹

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Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, edited by Nancy Guthrie

I read this book during Lent last year, and it was beautiful. Nancy Guthrie has curated a collection of twenty-five readings from authors that span church history. You’ll find Augustine here alongside J.I. Packer, John Calvin next to Francis Schaeffer. This isn’t technically a devotional but an anthology, one that’s easy to pick up and read any time of the day. (Guthrie’s Advent anthology Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus is lovely, too.)

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King’s Cross (Jesus the King), by Timothy Keller

This is one of my favorite books, and again, it’s not one specifically written for Lent. But Timothy Keller’s study through the book of Mark places Jesus’ life within the greater framework of God’s redemptive story. This is not a difficult read, but it’s a deep one that will give you much to ponder.

Note: This book has been republished under the title Jesus the King, so don’t let that throw you off the scent. Even if you don’t read it during Lent, it’s excellent reading any time of the year.

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And also!

I have been loving Jonathan Gibson’s series of devotional liturgies, the Lenten one of which is O Sacred Head Now Wounded. Each reading heaps the old plate with Scripture, prayer, theological excerpts, catechisms, creeds, songs, and more prayer. It’s a wonder how it all fits into a fifteenish-minute reading, but it does! I love that these readings are easy to shorten on the mornings I’m rushed, and expand elegantly on the days when I have time to linger in the Bible. But mostly I love the depth of them: they are rich and beautifully crafted, drawing on contemporary as well as classic sources, and they ground my mornings in Scripture before the day’s buffeting begins.

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What about you? What are you reading this season?

1. Piper’s book The Passion of Christ is actually the same material repackaged under a new title. How do I know? Because I own both and planned to review them separately here—until I read the table of contents. But hey, now we know they’re both good books!