What Grows in Weary Lands

How do we cultivate faith that endures? From award-winning author and former New York Times writer Tish Harrison Warren comes a fresh vision for navigating burnout and weariness through ancient Christian practices—guiding us toward lives of resilience, renewal, and flourishing.

“Warren is one of our best living spiritual writers. . . . It would be impossible to overstate how warmly I recommend this book to all.”—John Mark Comer, New York Times bestselling author of Practicing the Way and The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

Early Christians often grappled with a reality we rarely talk about in contemporary life: that God seems to abandon the soul at times, leaving us feeling as if we are alone and left to our own resources. These are times of futility, when work and relationships feel hard, when prayer feels unsatisfying, and we question whether our efforts are amounting to anything.

For centuries, Warren notes, times of “aridity” were seen as necessary prerequisites for growth and maturity. Yet in our culture fixated on speed and optimization, we risk losing this deeper sense of the human journey and the resilience that comes with it.

Writing for a moment when two-thirds of Americans are dissatisfied with their work, and a sense of languishing is widespread, Warren draws from both her own season of exhaustion and the rich well of Christian tradition—particularly that of the earliest Christian monks—to discover the habits and mindsets that anchor us in times of doubt, difficulty, and spiritual dryness. She offers hope to those who feel like life is overwhelming, taxing, and disorienting.

What Grows in Weary Lands speaks to anyone longing for a life of depth in a distracted age. Warren helps us see that nothing is wasted—that even in desert seasons something good is growing, rooted in grace and reaching toward glory.“So many of us are bone-tired—tired of all the noise, the hurry, the drama, and, at times, even tired of prayer. Into our cultural moment of chronic exhaustion, Tish Harrison Warren offers us a spirituality for the weary. . . . Warren is one of our best living spiritual writers; her ability to blend Christian spirituality and insights from church history with beautifully down-to-earth honesty and raw humor, all while keeping our soul hopeful in God, is a rare gift.”—John Mark Comer, New York Times bestselling author of Practicing the Way and The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

“Tish Harrison Warren has written the book we need in this time as believers, as neighbors, and as men and women navigating the modern world.”—Annie F. Downs, New York Times bestselling author of That Sounds Fun

“I have loved all of Tish Harrison Warren’s books, but I may have a new favorite. What Grows in Weary Lands is a rich application of ancient monastic wisdom to the burnout tendencies of modern life. You need to read it.”—Justin Whitmel Earley, author of Habits of the Household and The Body Teaches the Soul

“If you are looking for a way of being Christian when you feel like you are at the end of your rope, this is the book for you. Warren is one of the best spiritual writers of our day, and this may be her best work to date.”—Esau McCaulley, Ph.D., professor at Wheaton College, author of How Far to the Promised Land

“Read this book if you have discovered that you do not get through life without going through a desert; read this book to discover that the desert brings a kind of life you cannot find anywhere else.”—Andy Crouch, partner for theology and culture, Praxis, and author of The Life We’re Looking For

“[Warren] excels at energizing familiar wisdom (“If salvation is to meet us at all, it must meet us in the slog”) as she effectively reassures believers that the disorientation of ‘spiritual drought’ is as old as faith itself. Despairing Christians will be rejuvenated.”—Publishers Weekly

“Warren writes in such a way that often—sometimes more than once on a page—I had to stop and journal or stop and pray. Whatever spiritual season in which a reader approaches this book, there are gifts abundant. Her honesty and hope bring balm to the soul of the hurting and zeal to the heart of the eager.”—Rev. Dr. Amy Peeler, Kenneth T. Wessner Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, Associate Rector at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, and author of Women and Gender of God

“This book is like a friend who reminds you who you are and who God is when you’re too weary to remember. It’s a theology of staying-put—a gospel for those of us in the long middle of faith who are tired not because we’ve lost our faith, but because we’ve kept it.”—Jon Guerra, devotional music singer-songwriter

“What Grows in Weary Lands is poised to become a modern spiritual classic and another must-read offering from one of the brightest spiritual writers of our day.”—Rev. Claude Atcho, pastor of Church of the Resurrection (Charlottesville, Va.), author of Rhythms of Faith and Reading Black Books

“Honest, wise and persistent in imagination, this is a book to refresh the seasoned spiritual traveler. A beautifully crafted weave of both resilience and wonder.”—Martin Shaw, author of Liturgies of the WildTish Harrison Warren is the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, which was named Christianity Today’s Book of the Year, and Prayer in the Night, which received both Christianity Today’s Book of the Year and the ECPA Christian Book of the Year honors. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Christianity Today, Comment Magazine, The Point Magazine, and other outlets. She serves as the C. S. Lewis Theological Writer-in-Residence for the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. She is a senior fellow with the Trinity Forum and an assisting priest at Immanuel Anglican Church. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and their three children.Author of Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night