David Gibson > Quotes

“Death can radically enable us to enjoy life. By relativizing all that we do in our days under the sun, death can change us from people who want to control life for gain into people who find deep joy in receiving life as a gift. This is the main message of Ecclesiastes in a nutshell: life in God’s world is gift, not gain.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Stop chasing the wind! Stop thinking the future will be better and easier. Stop thinking that if only things were different you would be a better person and that one day you will be a better father. You do not know the future or what lies around the corner, whether good or ill. Perhaps these are indeed the very best days of my life. Maybe I’ll be dead tomorrow. Live the life you have now instead of longing for the life you think you will have but which you actually cannot control at all. When we realize there is a middle way between being lazy in the here and now and busting a gut for the future, we find tranquility.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Gift, not gain, is your new motto. Life is not about the meaning that you can create for your own life, or the meaning that you can find in the universe by all your work and ambitions. You do not find meaning in life simply by finding a partner or having kids or being rich. You find meaning when you realize that God has given you life in his world and any one of those things as a gift to enjoy.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Instead of being superficial, death invites you to be a person of depth. Only someone who knows how to weep will really know what it means to laugh. That’s the message of Ecclesiastes. It’s an invitation to be a person who realizes that living a good life means preparing to die a good death. Have”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Change and constancy are the two balancing weights on the seesaw of human experience, and God has given humanity the means to enjoy both of them by patterning the world with rhythm.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“be neither an escapist nor a theological snob, for part of living wisely is learning to live with the limitations of wisdom itself.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“The Preacher’s words are like nails. They wound. Some of them may have come to you with a very sharp tip indeed. But they have come to you directly from God”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“When you tell God you’ll do something, do it. He takes no pleasure in foolish chatter. Vow it, and then do it. Far better not to promise in the first place than to vow and not pay up. Don’t let your mouth make a sinner out of you (v. 6).”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“There are better things to do than succeed, more important things to do than make it in the world, and there are worse things to do than fail.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Every meal is a foretaste, an appetizer, for the banquet yet to come.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“The uncertainties of life are meant to have a shaping influence on the certainties of life.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“As Matthew Henry puts it, “The greatest abundance is but a dry pasture to a wicked man, who relishes only in that which pleases the senses; but to a godly man, who tastes the goodness of God in all his enjoyments, and by faith relishes that, though he has but little of the world, it is a green pasture.”
― David Gibson, The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host

“We use work to get the gift of wealth or success. No, says the Preacher, your work is itself a gift simply to enjoy, regardless of whether it makes you rich or not.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“It’s because of what words do that we have the book of Ecclesiastes. God gave us words because he loves creating things. He loves changing things. He loves seeing something come into being that didn’t exist beforehand. He spoke—​​​just opened his mouth”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“The reality is that if death doesn’t inform the way we live, then death is something we are pretending doesn’t exist.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Simplicity safeguards sincerity”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Craig Bartholomew observes that time and place are the two great coordinates of created life, and when our law courts are not the place where justice finds its appropriate time, the very order of creation itself breaks down.5”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Some reproaches of definite atonement misunderstand it, and others caricature it, but many are weighty and coherent, arising from a faithful desire to read Scripture wisely and to honor the goodness and love of God. Between them they touch on four interrelated aspects of the doctrine: its controversies and nuances in church history, its presence or absence in the Bible, its theological implications, and its pastoral consequences. This indicates that definite atonement has profound significance and a wide-ranging scope which requires a comprehensive treatment.”
― David Gibson, From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective

“When I preached through Ecclesiastes”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“When we accept in a deep way that we are going to die, that reality can stop us expecting too much from all the good things we pursue.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Psalm 23 teaches you there is nothing you need that Jesus will not supply.”
― David Gibson, The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host

“Don’t use people like that; your friendships are themselves the gift.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“One of the greatest mistakes we can ever make is to think about our life, our wealth, or our possessions as if we can predict the future. You can’t, says Jesus, so be rich toward God now, while you can. What’s the point of your wealth if disaster next week might take it from you?”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“For it is precisely in enjoying the world God has made that we show we have grasped the goodness of the God we say we love. Failure to enjoy is an offense, not merely an oversight.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“nothing is so unbearable for a man as to be in complete repose, without passions, without business, without distraction, without application.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“We live forward. Ecclesiastes teaches us to live life backward. It encourages us to take the one thing in the future that is certain—our death—and work backward from that point into all the details and decisions and heartaches of our lives, and to think about them from the perspective of the end. It is the destination that makes sense of the journey. If we know for sure where we are heading, then we can know for sure what we need to do before we get there. Ecclesiastes invites us to let the end sculpt our priorities and goals, our greatest ambitions and our strongest desires. I”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“But here’s what Ecclesiastes is saying: “The future is uncertain, so give your dessert away. Give it away. Sit loose to life by giving your life away. Sit loose to your possessions by giving them away.”1”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“The universe you inhabit and the life you have today come from God’s hand as something you do not deserve. Your life is on loan for a short while, and one day God will call time and take it back, just like the library will recall that overdue book on your shelf. So embrace life for what it is rather than what you’d like it to be. Live it before God with reverence and obedience. This is the pathway to joy, even though as you walk it, there will be mystery and pain. Have some nice food. Enjoy a good wine if you want—​​​but be sure to enjoy whatever good things come your way. Chapter 4 adds a new layer to this picture. As you enjoy, share. Share what you have with others. It’s as simple as”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Death reorients us to our limitations as creatures and helps up to see God's good gifts right in front of us at all times, each and every day of our lives. Instead of using these gifts as a means to a greater end in securing ultimate gain in the world, we take the time to live inside the gifts themselves and see the hand of God in them.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End