Showing results by author "Geoffrey Schmitt" in All Categories

Pilgrimage: Walking with God through Life, Loss, and Sacred Places by Geoffrey Schmitt This book invites readers on a journey—not only across ancient trails and holy destinations, but into the deeper spiritual landscape of the soul. Blending biblical reflection, historical insight, personal storytelling, poetry, and guided questions, Pilgrimage explores both the metaphor and the practice of sacred journeying. Part One traces the inner path we walk as believers: from the initial call to follow, through wilderness and weeping, up mountaintops, and into a clearer sense of purpose. Part Two ...

Willpower Isn’t Enough explores why lasting spiritual change does not come through effort alone, but through the healing and re-ordering of desire. Drawing on Scripture, Augustine’s ordo amoris, recovery wisdom, prison ministry experience, and personal reflection, Geoff Schmitt invites readers into a gentler, deeper path of transformation—one rooted in love rather than control. This book is for anyone weary of striving, caught in compulsive patterns, or longing for a faith that heals rather than exhausts.

A Theology of Dying: Preparing for the Next Life Now is not a book about hospice procedures or end-of-life planning. It is a spiritual exploration of what it means to learn how to die before we die—so that death, when it comes, does not arrive as a stranger. Drawing on Scripture, pastoral ministry, prison outreach, hospice experience, and a lifetime of lived faith, Geoffrey Schmitt invites readers into the quiet, courageous work of surrender that shapes a faithful life. Each chapter explores a different form of “spiritual dying”: the death of ego, the release of control, the letting ...

Disappointment is a universal human experience. Dreams collapse. Plans change. Prayers seem unanswered. Doors close without explanation. At times life simply does not unfold the way we expected. In When Hope Hurts: A Biblical Guide to Disappointment and Trust, pastor and author Geoffrey Schmitt explores how faith can guide us through those difficult moments. Drawing from both Scripture and personal experience, this study shows that disappointment has been part of the journey for many of the Bible’s most faithful people. Naomi believed her life had become bitter. Joseph waited years in ...

When God Is Silent is written for those who have prayed faithfully and found no answer—those for whom God’s absence feels more frightening than suffering itself. Rather than explaining silence away, this book explores how darkness, waiting, and unanswered prayer can become places of encounter rather than abandonment. Drawing from Scripture—Job’s unanswered questions, the unresolved lament of Psalm 88, Jesus’ silence in the wilderness, the cry from the cross, and the long waiting of Holy Saturday—this study traces a quiet, faithful path through the places where explanations fail....

In a divided and restless age, The Kingdom of Peace: Living as Christ’s Ambassadors calls believers to rediscover the lasting calm of Christ’s rule. Drawing from Scripture, personal reflection, and years of ministry experience, Geoffrey Schmitt (writing as Willingheart) shows how peace is both a gift from God and a mission for His people. From peace with God to peace in the world, each chapter unfolds like a pilgrimage — teaching us how to live as Christ’s representatives in every circumstance, how to stand firm under pressure, and how to let the fruit of peace transform our ...

The Via Crucis: Walking the Pilgrim Path of Suffering, Love, and Redemption invites readers to walk prayerfully with Christ along the ancient path known as the Stations of the Cross. For centuries Christians have reflected on this sacred journey—from Jesus’ condemnation before Pilate to His burial in the tomb. Each station reveals not only the suffering of Christ but also the depth of God’s love for the world. In this thoughtful and deeply personal study, Geoffrey “Willingheart” Schmitt explores the fourteen stations through Scripture, theological reflection, psychology, pastoral ...

Why did Jesus so often say, “Tell no one”? The Gospel of Mark — and other Gospel accounts — show a surprising pattern: demons silenced, healings hidden, confessions cautioned, and even mountaintop visions kept secret. This has long puzzled readers and theologians, who call it the Messianic Secret. In this study, Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Schmitt (Willingheart, God’s Peaceful Smithy) explores why Jesus concealed His identity until the Cross and Resurrection. Through Scripture, teaching, meditation, personal reflection, poetry, and prayer, this book uncovers the wisdom of God’s timing: ...

Families are among the greatest blessings in life—and sometimes the greatest challenges. The Bible tells many family stories, and they are rarely simple. Brothers compete, parents struggle, children wander, and relationships become strained. Yet throughout these stories one truth continues to appear: God works through imperfect families to accomplish His purposes. Families in the Bible: Strengths, Conflicts, and the Ties That Bind explores twelve powerful biblical family stories, from the earliest households in Genesis to the teachings of Jesus and the birth of the Christian community. ...

The Church in the Making: From Pentecost’s Fire to Nicaea’s Creed traces the remarkable story of the early church’s transformation from a Spirit-empowered community in Jerusalem to a global faith with creeds, canon, and structure. Along the way, readers encounter courageous apostles, devoted martyrs, brilliant apologists, careful theologians, and passionate believers — all striving to define and defend the truth of the Gospel. Each chapter blends history, theology, personal reflection, meditation, a poem, questions for discussion, and prayer, making this study both informative and ...

Secure in Love, Free to Grow Formed by Grace, Found Faithful What if faithfulness does not begin with effort — but with security? In Secure in Love, Free to Grow, Geoffrey Schmitt explores a simple but life-altering sequence: grace secures us, security frees us, freedom forms us, and formation produces faithfulness. Many believers live with subtle pressure — striving to prove worth, fearing failure, measuring growth by performance. Others, reacting against pressure, drift into passivity. This book offers a third way: a life rooted in secure love that naturally matures into steady ...

Mystical Encounters in the Bible: A Journey into Visions, Dreams, and Divine Encounters By The Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Schmitt What happens when the veil between heaven and earth is pulled back? When angels speak, dreams guide, and the glory of God fills the room? In When Heaven Breaks Through, Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Schmitt invites you on a powerful and deeply reflective journey through the mystical encounters of the Bible—those breathtaking moments when God makes His presence known in visions, dreams, voices, and fire. From Jacob’s ladder to Ezekiel’s wheels, from Isaiah’s temple vision to ...

Contentment: Finding Peace in Every Circumstance In a restless world that constantly urges us to chase more, Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Schmitt — known to many as Willingheart — invites readers to discover the calm strength of contentment. Drawing from Scripture, personal stories, ministry experiences, and hard-won wisdom, he explores how peace can be found not in perfect conditions but in a trusting heart. Through six thoughtful chapters — The Shepherd’s Provision, The Wisdom of Enough, Learning in the Hard Places, Comparison and the Thief of Joy, The Peace of Letting Go, and The Joy of ...

Learning to See with Faith: More Than Just Optimism explores the quiet, transformative work of faith as a way of seeing the world truthfully and lovingly—especially when certainty is elusive and outcomes remain unresolved. Rather than equating faith with positive thinking or religious certainty, this study invites readers into a deeper vision shaped by humility, endurance, community, suffering, and love. Drawing on Scripture, pastoral experience, prison ministry, hospice work, long marriages marked by illness, and ordinary moments of grace, the author shows how faith matures not by ...

In a culture that prizes momentum, visibility, and constant motion, retreat often feels like failure. But Scripture tells another story. Retreats: Stepping Back to Move Forward explores the surprising truth that some of God’s greatest work happens in hidden places. From the Sabbath rest of creation to Moses in Midian, Elijah in the cave, David in the wilderness, Jesus in the desert, and Paul in Arabia, retreat appears not as defeat but as divine preparation. Drawing from biblical narrative, Kairos prison ministry, seasons of exhaustion, quiet mornings in Arkansas, and decades of pastoral ...

“Everything happens for a reason” is often spoken with kindness—but in the face of real suffering, it can ring hollow or even cause harm. Not Everything Happens for a Reason offers a more mature, faithful way to trust God when explanations fail. Drawing from Scripture, pastoral experience, prison ministry, recovery wisdom, and a lifetime of lived faith, Geoffrey Schmitt explores the difference between God’s will and God’s permission, the reality of human freedom, and the healing power of divine presence. Rather than presenting God as a controlling force behind every event, this ...

Come, Let Us Reason Together: Discovering God’s Wisdom explores one of Scripture’s most profound invitations — to engage the mind and heart in conversation with God. From creation’s divine logic to Christ’s compassionate reasoning, from Paul’s persuasive faith to the humble wisdom of Job, this study traces the harmony between faith and thought across the pages of Scripture. Each chapter offers Scripture, reflection, poetry, and prayer to guide believers toward deeper understanding. Dr. Geoffrey G. Schmitt (“Willingheart”) invites readers to see that faith and reason are not ...

12 Steps and the Bible: Coming to Christ in Recovery is a spiritually grounded journey through the Twelve Steps, woven with Scripture, honest storytelling, and pastoral wisdom. Drawing from decades of ministry, recovery work, and Kairos Prison Ministry, Geoffrey Schmitt (Willingheart) shows how the natural movement of the Twelve Steps leads directly toward Christ—through honesty, surrender, confession, amends, prayer, and service. Each chapter includes Scripture, teaching, meditation, a personal reflection from the author’s life, a poem, questions for deeper thought, a prayer, and a “...

The Great Threads invites readers to step back and see the Bible as a single, coherent story—woven patiently across centuries, cultures, and lives. Rather than approaching Scripture as a collection of disconnected passages or doctrines, this study traces seven recurring themes that appear again and again from Genesis to Revelation: God’s presence, creation and renewal, promise and covenant, deliverance and freedom, wisdom for daily living, suffering and redemption, and the hope of God’s kingdom. Each chapter follows one of these threads through the biblical story, showing how it ...

What is normal Christianity? For many believers, the Christian life has been reduced to fragments — forgiveness without transformation, worship without power, evangelism without sacrament, structure without Spirit. In Normal Christianity: The River of Sacrament, Gospel, and Spirit, Geoffrey “Willingheart” Schmitt explores a return to the biblical pattern of the early Church — a Church rooted in Word and Table, bold in Gospel proclamation, and alive in the power of the Holy Spirit. Drawing deeply from the Book of Acts and the letters of Paul, and inspired by the vision of Patriarch ...