don't waste your life

this is another book that I've had for ages. I remember starting it, probably in or before first year, before i'd heard piper speak at forum 08, but i found it really hard going, even though it's adapted from a series of talks he's given at conferences for young people. i think i found it easier now because i listen to his sermons quite a lot and can imagine him saying everything he writes. :)

anyway, lately i've been realising i'm not going to be a student forever and i need to figure out what to do afterwards... it might still be 18 months or so away before i graduate, but still. best to plan ahead i figure...

So, even j-pi himself has said that basically he just writes the same book over and over again with different titles and emphases. and i guess this is no exception really. if you've listened to or read more than a couple of his sermons or books then most of the stuff he says will be familiar to you.

but it IS good. obviously. he sets the tone for the rest of the book like this:

"For me as a boy, one of the most gripping illustrations my fiery father used was the story of a man converted in old age. The church had prayed for this man for decades. He was hard and resistant. But this time, for some reason, he showed up when my father was preaching. At the end of the service, during a hymn, to everyone's amazement he came and took my father's hand. They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were dismissed. God opened his heart to the Gospel of Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life. But that did not stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face - and what an impact it made on me to hear my father say this through his own tears - "I've wasted it! I've wasted it!"
...In those early years God awakened in me a fear and a passion not to waste my life. The thought of coming to my old age and saying through tears, "I've wasted it! I've wasted it!" was a fearful and horrible thought to me."

i'd reckon that the bulk of the book is taken up with theological stuff like, what the purpose of our lives is (to glorify god, by enjoying him) and how that embraces every single aspect of our lives (from buttering a slice of bread, to sorting out finances, to going to church, to relationships, to work...etc). and how everything we do should be a boasting in the cross, in that everything that happens to us whether good or bad (to be turned for our good), was bought by jesus on the cross, and is great because all we deserve is hell.

and all of that is amazing, it's great to have truths drummed in so that hopefully, when you really need to, you'll remember. the final few chapters are more practical though, focussing on how we glorify god in our secular jobs, and therefore don't waste our lives... and then his penultimate chapter is a call to the generation of people he's writing to, to not waste their lives, but to give it over to God in missionary service. Not that people with secular jobs are inferior in anyway because there needs to be a partnership between goers and senders, but his aim i think in that chapter is to really urge people to see the need for missionaries, especially amongst unreached people groups where there's no church already established.

i think that this was the right time to read this book, i don't think i would have understood as much from it had i read it a year or so ago. it's definitely given me some food for thought anyway because i guess like most people, i don't want to waste my life either.