Living Life Backward: A Book Review (and Some Ponderings)

I love listening to my husband read the Bible during family worship, but aside from reading my own Bible during my personal devotions, reading isn’t my thing. And I’m not compelled to pick apart a book doctrinally. But last summer, a book grabbed hold of me!

Along with sixteen high schoolers, my husband and I had the opportunity to lead the ECHO missions trip. For two weeks, the eighteen of us worked hard in the hot sun during the day, and then in our evening study time, together we read aloud Living Life Backward by David Gibson. I think the subtitle gives it a lot more definition: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End.

The whole point of the book is a call to stop playing pretend and to understand that we are all going to die. . .at least one day. So how should we live in that light? I will admit it: I like to have a to-do list that I can check off. Sometimes I look to the future and remain so focused there that I do not see the blessings God is giving me now or the ways he is calling me to serve him now. In doing so, we miss the life that God has given us to live here and now.

In a world of 401k’s and “when and if I get. . .” it is so easy to get too caught up looking ahead, or so focused on small things that they become too important in our lives. Quickly, idols can build up in our lives, even at a subconscious level. We idolize our own health, our own finances, our own family, our own friends, our own piety, and our own ability to provide for our families without realizing that one day we are going to die and leave nothing behind. Our health will be gone because we will be dead. Our finances will be paid in taxes and spent by others who may or may not make good decisions with them. Eventually our families will forget us. (Not trying to be critical here, but how well do you know your great-great-aunt Mabel? How much of your time do you spend talking about her?) Our friends will get other friends, and they will die soon, too. Our piety—well,  when we face judgement, we will find out if our hearts were in the right place or if we were just being pharisaical so we could look down on others. Whatever provision we are able to leave our families will be meaningless.

As bleak as this may sound, hopefully it propels us to see our lives as they really are—short times on earth with an opportunity to shake off the world’s perspective on how we should live our lives and use God’s perspective.

David Gibson ends his book quoting Paul’s words in Philippians 1:21:

“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul knew that in Christ, living and dying mean a win-win. We can labor for Christ while we live, and we can live with Christ when we die. Your death and the judgment to follow—the great fixed points in your life—are the very things that can reach back from the future into today and transform the life God has given you to live. David Gibson, Living Life Backward