Notes on A Quest for More | ONE

Last year, the Westminster Bookstore sent me two complimentary books as a "thank you" for participating in their blog partners program. Getting free books is always a pleasant surprise. I already thought very highly of their bookstore, but their generosity secured an extra measure of appreciation with me.

One of the books they sent to me was the recently released A Quest for More: Living for something bigger than you by Paul David Tripp (New Growth Press, 2007). I had to put this on the shelf as I worked on the many other books I had already begun to read, but I have been anticipating an opportunity to dig into it. The opportunity came this past week when I was invited to join a men's study group that is currently reading through and discussing this book. I was not able to make the meeting, but I did begin to read the book, and I'm hooked. I've got to finish it now!

The many books by Paul David Tripp come highly recommended by various sources. I was glad to work through the DBTS Booklist (2008) this past week and find that a number of Tripp's books are among their recommendations.

Anyway, in A Quest for More, Tripp addresses the basics of a Christian worldview from a counselor's perspective. The truths Tripp teaches here are old truths repackaged in a fresh, engaging, and highly readable way. I'm not yet finished, but I want to share the following excerpts from the book.

In chapter one, Tripp defines the word transcendence and argues that this term pinpoints a basic human motivator.

tran • scen • dence: the state of being beyond and outside of the ordinary range of human experience (13)

He argues:

There is woven inside each of us a desire for something more—a craving to be part of something bigger, greater, and more profound than our relatively meaningless day-by-day existence. (14)

We were created to be part of something so big, so glorious, so far beyond the ordinary that it would totally change the way we approach every ordinary thing in our lives. And in all of sin's blindness, brokenness, and rebellion, that desire to transcend has now been crushed. (14-15)

The problem is that we continue to short-change ourselves. We continue to settle for "less." Settling for less involves living "only for ourselves" (14): "self-survival and self-pleasure" (16).

God purposed that the borders of our vision would be much, much larger than the boundaries of our lives. (16)

His grace cuts a hole in your self-built prison and invites you to step into something so huge, so significant that only one word in the Bible can adequately capture it. That word is _________. (18)

What word do you think should fill in the blank? I'll pick this up in another post.

Notes on A Quest for More | ONE