Looking back on a lifetime of service to God. . . .

Joshua A. McClure. A Wonder-Filled Life: Galatians 2:20. 330p., $17.99, Deep River Books.

Because we are created in God’s image, we have a spiritual thirst. God has “planted eternity in the human heart.” This means that we can never be completely satisfied with earthly pleasures and pursuits. Nothing but the eternal God can truly satisfy us. God has built in us a restless yearning for the kind of perfect world that can only be found in his perfect rule. He has given us a glimpse of the perfection of his creation. But it is only a glimpse; we cannot see into the future or comprehend everything. So we must trust God now and do his work on earth. Thus, amid our everyday struggles, we hear the words of Scripture concerning Jesus.

In A Wonder-Filled Life, Joshua McClure shows our dependency on God and how he is the source of all things, including ourselves. He is a power that sustains and rules the world that we live in, and he alone deserves our praise. God does not want us to continue to frustrate ourselves by trying to change our own lives and crying out to him only when in trouble. He wants us to live daily in his presence, avoiding the anxiety and disappointments of the old life apart from him. He wants us to learn of him; he wants us to grow in him, and he desires intimacy that can only come from our spending time in his presence. Therefore, Jesus’s purpose in coming into a fallen world was to provide a place of happiness, joy, and peace, and eternal fellowship with God, expressed when he said, “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”