Living Life Backward 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

“They say that actions speak louder than words and that a picture is worth a thousand words”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside us.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“flesh. 13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Just as God made every person”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“One day it won’t be possible. Death is coming. So do your bucket list—​​​not your to-do list. We all have a to-do list: feed the dog, go to the bank, do the shopping, phone the plumber. But Ecclesiastes is a book that urges us to do our bucket list.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“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

“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

“Life is gift, not gain. Give up your pursuit of profit from your toil and instead seek to enjoy the things that God has given you for what they are, and as you do that, you will know some reward.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“Preacher is prodding us, again, with his one main message: the thing that is worse than either success or failure in life is failing to live in the first place.”
― 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

“Here is wisdom you will not hear anywhere else: take the best of what you have and the best of what you are and give them away.”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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’m happy to go home to him.”
― David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End

“The life you have today comes from God’s hand as a gift.”
― 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

“God is in heaven”; “Fear God.” Why is it so easy to lose this perspective and this attitude?”
― 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