Living Life Backward was a unique devotional. I liked how each chapter started with quotes from the book of Ecclesiastes and then the chapter correlated to that. It was a great way to get further insight into the book of Ecclesiastes and I loved that.

All in all, easy to read (although I took forever to get through it due to a nonfiction reading slump) and made me think. I enjoyed this read and recommend it.

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I believe we have a lot that we can learn from the book of Ecclesiastes and appreciated the authors insight into the book. It was organized well and kept the flow from chapter to chapter.
I received this book free from the publisher for the purpose of review.

To die well means I realize death is not simply something that happens to me; it happens to me because I am a sinner. I realize that in a sense I cause my own death. To die well means I realize that every time I see a coffin, it preaches to me that the world is broken and fallen and under the curse of death-and I am a part of it. It means I realize that I am not owed three score years and ten by God. It is only because of his mercy that I am not consumed today. To die well means realizing that from the day I was born I lived under the sentence of death, and I am amazed that God spared me as long as he did. It means I have been heading for death from the moment I was born. It means I have been laying up treasure in heaven, and that is where my heart is. To die well means everything I have in this world I hold with open hands because I love Jesus more than anything and anyone else, and I am happy to go home to him.

Ecclesiastes is a great teacher of reality and facing our limitations. I will be honest, the beginning of this study challenged me that it gripped heart in that I am holding on to things that have no eternal value. That life is a gift and how do I value that gift from the creator. How easy it is for us to know this in our head but to live it in the mundane of life can be challenging. Our search for significance and happiness many times is a search of self instead of a pursuit of God and who he is.

Is our pursuits in what we gain and not the gift? Think on that for a moment. Do not answer that quickly. After reading this study, you may have a different answer than before your started. There is so much wisdom in the book of Ecclesiastes - what appears gloom and doom is really joy and glory. About what true enjoyment really is. As Gibson so eloquently expresses, you can not truly enjoy what you worship. Enjoyment comes from the putting true reality in place. That God is control and worthy to be worshipped. The man who makes sex his God, and who worships it, discovers that actually what is normal, pleasurable, soon becomes inadequate and not enough, and he becomes chained to a path whereby he begins to enjoy only perversion-which of course is no enjoyment.

Death is a teacher of how we are to live this life now. What really matters and our reality. Death reorients us to our limitations as creatures and helps us to see God's good gifts right in front of us all the time, each and every day of our lives What if the pleasure of food is a daily joy that we ungratefully overlook? What if our work was never intended to make us successful but simply to make us faithful and generous. What if it is death that shows us that this how we3 are meant to live?

If I were to nominate the best Christian book this would be it. It left me undone to the core and stirred my heart. I highly recommend.

A Special Thank You to Crossway and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

I have tried so many books around Ecclesiastes and gaining some understanding in what Solomon is saying, and I can say truthfully, i have found my book. What a great, rich resource around a very unique book in the Bible. I feel like David's writing is like shining a flashlight on a word or key words and giving it more light to the point of grasping what the author is saying...that is a gift. So if you are a Bible person who is trying to get a better understanding around Ecclesiastes, this is your resource.

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End by David Gibson 4 ☆’s

Thank you to Crossway publishing for providing me with a copy of this book. All opinions in this blog are my own.

I haven’t blogged in a while because I haven’t been reading. For the past three weeks, my life has revolved around moving. Now that my life is back to semi-normalcy, I decided to pick up where I had left off. I did read this book in two sections – before and after the move.

This book is so convicting in all the right ways. It helps show how relevant the Old Testament still is in the believers life. It is easy to see it as ‘old,’ and not question how it is still applicable to today’s times. Gibson takes this book of the Bible and shows exactly how it is applicable and so needed. His take on this book can be seen as morbid. At first, I didn’t know what to think because he spares no time getting to the point. And if you don’t mind the minor spoiler, I’ll post it here: You are going to die. That’s the point of living. He challenges you, as the reader, to reflect on what is your life going to look like when it happens. This matter is not like others in life, some choose not to get married or have kids. Dying is not up to you.

Gibson takes this point and the Preacher of Ecclesiastes’ message and makes it applicable. He breaks the book apart, which I appreciated. I have not studied this book before and throughly enjoyed how he took the book and taught from it. I was challenged by his study to make sure that I live in light of what the Preacher is saying. I appreciated how his chapters were in distinct chunks with a specific topic. This helped keep the focus narrowed. I also liked how, if this were to be done as a study, there were questions provided for that at the end.

Overall, Gibson is an author with a heart for God. He delves into His word and shares his knowledge with others. I appreciated the fresh take on an Old Testament book, and enjoyed all that I learned from it. I will revisit this throughout my life to make sure when the day comes that I gain, (Philippians 1:21) my life will reflect Christ, so He gets all the glory.

Where I once viewed Ecclesiastes as a darkly pessimistic, I now see it as a challenge to enjoy all God's good gifts in the short time He gives us here on earth. I am deeply indebted to the author for explaining that the statement of Solomon that is sometimes translated as "Vanity of vanities" is not actually a statement of the value of human life, but of its length. Repeatedly reminding us of the brevity of life, David Gibson follows along with Solomon's exploration of different ways of life and his final reccommendations about how to live.