Hope has its Reasons: The Search to Satisfy Our Deepest Longings

A book that challenges the agnostic and the believer alike to acknowledge the truth of the human heart.

Mags Moss | April 2013 - Highfields Book of the Month

By Rebecca Manley Pippert - (2001) Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press

hope has its reasonsThis is a great book.  Immediately attractive in its exploration of the search of the human heart for happiness, love and purpose, it is a thoughtful and stimulating unpacking of Augustine's proposition that, 'our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God'.  And as such it is a book that challenges the agnostic and the believer alike to acknowledge the truth of the human heart.

our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God

Acknowledging that  'Our emptiness is real. Our desire for love is deep.' we try so many potential sources of happiness which ultimately disappoint us, 'but our deepest longing of all is for God.'  The author (RMP) warmly encourages us to examine ourselves and to consider what God has done for us and how he satisfies every longing of our heart.  She illustrates this helpfully from scripture, from fictional and philosophical literature and from her own life experience.  She makes a sound case that this is not just to give us a nice warm spiritual feeling but that it is the only consistent way to live happily, the only way to answer those who ask such questions as ‘Why suffering?’ and ‘What difference does God make?'

To set out on the road to contentment, we must look truthfully into our own hearts, to see what really lies beneath our veneer of respectability.  However hard we try to live good and useful lives, our motives, even our best intentions are at root influenced by selfishness. Aren't we all,  'great lovers of our own person'?  The set of our compass consistently reverts to ourselves. 

Our culture encourages us to seek pleasure, to think positively of ourselves, to fill our emptiness, 'we go outside ourselves for an answer, and our cures prove not to be big enough to build our life upon.'  Psychology, while helping us to understand ourselves, is limited in its ability to correct our flaws or to supply the prescription for happiness and contentment. The inability to face our true nature gets in the way of the search for happiness and love and mars our relationships by inhibiting true intimacy.  G.K. Chesterton when asked to comment on 'What is the problem in the universe?' responded, 'I am.  Sincerely, G.K.Chesterton.'  RMP suggests that we should pay heed to our conscience, our doubts about ourselves and our nagging discontent.  To live the best we must first face the worst about ourselves.

To set out on the road to contentment, we must look truthfully into our own hearts, to see what really lies beneath our veneer of respectability.

RMP's writing is consistently clear and incisive e.g. when explaining the consequences of a life lived for self: 'Ours is an age when psychology tends to eat up theology, so we need to underscore for ourselves that there are more than psychological reasons for our wounds…..the ultimate source of human woundedness comes from the dislocations of not making God the centre of our lives.  Having put ourselves out of joint with God, we have wounded ourselves.' (RMP)

But there is an answer to this fractured relationship.  God has loved us and planned the way to return us to what we were created to be.  God takes sin so seriously that he sacrificed even his Son to do what it takes to free us. Wounded we come to him and by his wounds we are healed. 

the ultimate source of human woundedness comes from the dislocations of not making God the centre of our lives.  Having put ourselves out of joint with God, we have wounded ourselves

The paradox of the cross is that it demonstrates 'the extraordinary love that insists on highlighting our evil, in order to leave us in no doubt that it has been forgiven.' (Sebastian Moore).  In his resurrection God gives us hope and peace and joy, which not only transforms us but also transforms our suffering and the way we see God's purposes in the world.
As believers, RMP exhorts us to live the cross and live the resurrection.  'If we don't allow God to have access to our deepest selves, we don't allow him to be our centre, and we merely coast on whatever contentment we may have, we'll end up mediocre Christians without passion or fire.  We'll look at the needy in our midst with puzzlement, not compassion, because our own experience with God is so superficial.' (RMP)

If we don’t allow God to have access to our deepest selves, we don’t allow him to be our centre, and we merely coast on whatever contentment we may have, we’ll end up mediocre Christians without passion or fire

I cannot commend this book highly enough.  Many others have agreed:
- 'A no-nonsense practical book for those who have failed and don't know what to do about it.' (Jamie Buckingham)
- 'This extraordinary book makes God's grace more amazing than ever, and you will find yourself 'lost in wonder, love and praise.' (David Seamands). 
My overriding impression, having read the book several times, is that the author sincerely wants to help me be that aroma of Christ to those I meet – by examining myself, by dwelling richly on the word of God, and committing myself to the one who knows all hearts.  To allow that 'substantial healing' (F. Schaeffer) here on earth that only God can do in the human heart.  There is reason to hope.


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