How does the gospel—the good news about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—shape normal, everyday life? While the world seeks to exchange difficulty and pain for comfort and ease, the Bible’s vision of a “good” life is a reenactment of the gospel—a downward path toward self-denial before moving upward toward new life. In this insightful book, Paul Miller argues that embracing this "J-Curve" shape of life radically recenters our daily lives on Christ. Down to earth, practical, and filled with personal stories that illustrate biblical truths in action, this book explores how Christians can experience rich gratitude and joy as they walk with Christ in all the ups and downs of real life.

I received an ARC of this book on NetGalley in exchange for my honest review before the publication.

This book got me excited. Something a little different. I loved that the book opened on a narrative versus something very explanatory-which can be typical for the Christian genre. What I didn’t love-I didn’t have much context for the author.

Some sort of prequel or introduction or anything about this author could have given me a better clue. I went ahead and completed my own research on the author. Paul Miller is the Executive Director of seeJesus, a global discipleship mission which he founded in 1999. He’s written books, Bible study materials, and is fairly accomplished. He’s a good storyteller and is evident of his years with this mission.

I had a hard time following parts of this book, honestly organizing this book a little differently could have made a better impact.

I would have also liked to see a better explanation up front of the J curve and a better way to have readers/believers try to understand it a little better. Organizing and having this explanation would allow readers to better connect with what they’re looking at and reading.

It’s definitely not like the rest of the Christian genre. I’m not sure this will be the next best seller, but this will definitely be a tool of conversation, a way to understand our lives a little bit differently.

Overall, I recommend the book, particularly if you want something different for the genre. This book will be published on June 30th, 2019.