Hope Has Its Reasons: The Search to Satisfy Our Deepest Longings

Rebecca Manley Pippert examines these persistently human questions in this thoughtful and personal book. She invites you to join her on a journey exploring the region between faith and unbelief where your hopes and doubts mingle. Calling as expert guides such thinkers as Albert Camus and C.S. Lewis, she cites freely her own experiences and sets out the questions all face---questions about significance, meaning, love, life and truth, the search for encouragement and security.

Pippert offers no canned formulas or saccharine cliches. She explores the human condition by showing that the problem in the world lies in our own hearts (chapter 1). We're not okay (chapter 2), neither are we in charge (chapter 3). The problem is that we worship the wrong things (chapter 4). Only God can satisfy our deepest longings - the brokenness of our lives results from seeking that satisfaction in other things - relationships, wealth, sex, pleasure, status, etc. This idolatrous worship is sin (chapter 5) The answer to our woes is found in the gospel: the story of Jesus crucified and risen (chapters 6-7). When we respond to the gospel in honest confession and a life of genuine repentance, we are changed (chapter 8). The Christian life is an appropriation of the gospel, as live the cross in humble denial of self (chapter 9) and live the resurrection in joyful hope (chapter 10).

Excellent book to share with a friend who does not yet know the Lord.