Awe by Paul David Tripp

“We have an awe problem,” Tripp writes. We are hard wired for awe. God created us that way. Our focus is to be on the beauty of God but other kinds of awe have captured our heart. We need to refocus our wondering heart on God again and again for nothing else will satisfy.

“God intentionally loaded the world with amazing things to leave you astounded.” Tripp says God created us with the ability to take in that awe and pursue it. The awe we pursue controls our thoughts and emotions and shapes the direction of our life.

Tripp helps us determine the awe we pursue. We will always be dissatisfied if our pursuit is not for the awe found in God. All other awe was created to point us to God.

There is a war going on for what will rule our pursuit. Sin replaces our worship of God with worship of self. Tripp argues that our wrong pursuit is at the root and source of every evil thing we think, say, and do. He shows us in Scripture how this war is being waged. Reading Isaiah 40 is the beginning of getting on the right path again.

Tripp has nailed it. He reveals the true source of our disappointment, our hurt, our anger, our frustration. Our emotions reveal what has captured our awe, as does our complaining. We will not find what we are looking for in created things, yet we keep looking, keep trying.

I highly recommend this book to every Christian. Tripp has a special section for pastors and another for parents, but this book is for all Christians who want to understand the longing and how it is rightly filled. He writes, “...only when your heart is satisfied in him can you be free of looking for spiritual satisfaction in the fleeting pleasures of the physical world.”

I recommend this book to anyone who is seeking personal happiness and fulfillment and has not found it. Tripp has great insight into our condition and that for which we so desperately seek. May we seek to have hearts captured by the awe of God. Reading this book helps us understand how to focus on that which truly fills us.

Food for thought: “Only when awe of God progressively replaces awe of self will we joyfully, willingly, and consistently live as God designed us to live.”

You can watch an interview about the book here.

My rating: 5/5 stars.

Paul David Tripp (DMin, Westminster Theological Seminary) is a pastor, author, and international conference speaker. He is also the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, professor of pastoral life and care at Redeemer Seminary, and executive director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care, under the auspices of the Association of Biblical Counselors. He is the author of a number of books. He and his wife live in Philadelphia and have four grown children. You can find out more at www.paultripp.com.

Crossway, 208 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher for the purpose of an independent and honest review.