Book Preview: "Forever: Why You Can't Live Without It"

Paul David Tripp has a new book out called Forever: Why You Can't Live Without It which examines the Christian life lived out in view of eternity. Certainly in the West our focus tends to be upon enjoying this earthly life, to the extent that having a "full life", a "satisfying life" becomes our expectation, our perceived right. We surround ourselves with everything we think we need to bring it to pass, yet remain so dissatisfied. Always seeking and never finding. And when things like illness and disability intrude, we feel we've been short-changed. We may even find ourselves questioning and challenging God because He has not delivered "the life" we've come to expect. Even the minor vagaries of life are considered road blocks keeping happiness just out of our reach. In contrast, when my son spent a summer ministering in Uganda he was surprised to discover that eternity was their main topic of interest. At the time he was there life expectancy in Uganda was 47 years old. Wherever he traveled in the country to preach and teach, men asked to hear what the Bible teaches about eternity.

Tripp takes a different approach than the one we might expect. Instead of viewing eternity as something that intrudes into our earthly lives, he explores the biblical revelation that this life is, in fact, our preparation FOR eternity. In his review of the book, Stephen Witmer [The Gospel Coalition] writes,

The book hangs on two key pastoral insights, First, God calls Christians to live with a preparation mentality rather than a destination mentality. This life is not intended to be our final destination. Rather, it is God's intended means of preparing us for eternity in His presence. This preparation occurs in and through the imperfections and disappointments of this present life. We often miss God's grace because we're expecting it to show up as deliverance from troubles rather than the character-refining troubles themselves.

Second, God's promise to believers of an eternal future in heaven carries with it the implicit guarantee that He will guard us until we arrive safely at the future He has promised. In Tripp's  moving penultimate chapter ("My Forever Story") he shares the major importance of this realization in his own life. "When I realized that the promises of forever meant guarantees for me along the way, my life began to change."

[The entire review can be found here.]