Faithfully Present ebook

Something inside us longs to be God-like. To be fully freed and self-defining is the existence we ‘post-everything’ people are reaching for. But our pursuit is exhausting. What if we admit that God alone is God-like? What if we accept the good limitations of how he created us? That’s what Faithfully Present helps us to see, as Adam Ramsey guides us into those green pastures and beside those still waters.

In Faithfully Present, Adam Ramsey proves to be a reliable, insightful, and frequently playful guide who helps us navigate the changing seasons of our lives. This book is a heartfelt magnification of the unchanging God, who is faithful and with us through them all.

Adam Ramsey is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. After writing deeply and beautifully about the collision of head and heart in Truth on Fire, he turns his biblically saturated imagination to a topic we are in desperate need of understanding in our technological age: the truth of limits and how embracing them settles our soul into the present, where we can commune deeply with God and others. In fact the only place where we can do that is in the present. If you feel hurried and thin, or if you feel like your mind is never with you in the room… this is the book for you!

In a world that constantly tells us we can be anything we want to be and to go harder, to run faster and to do more, Adam Ramsey warmly points us back to what’s true: we are creatures limited by both time and place. And our limitations are for our good. Adam’s words graciously correct our drive to identify with our productivity and to be everywhere all at once. But he doesn’t stop there. He invites us to consider how our given limitations set us free to be faithfully present right when and where our good God has placed us. I closed this book with a renewed affection for my family and friends, my faith and my work, the season I’m in, the place I live, the body I’ve been given, and the heaven that awaits me. This book is full of worshipful words for a weary generation.

Adam has given us a lovely meditation on time, bracing reflections on death, and important insights on place. With many turns of phrase, astute observations, and theological gems, Faithfully Present beckons us into true living. I am grateful to have read it, and I hope to live better because of it.

So many people are captivated by answering one important identity question: ‘Who am I?’ While that is an important question, it can’t be fully answered without also knowing when you are and where you are. In Faithfully Present, Adam Ramsey reminds us of our humanity and our limits. Embracing our humanity helps us embrace our limitless God. I hope this book gets a wide reading.

In Faithfully Present, Adam Ramsey ranges far and wide across time and space: from the apparently insignificant minutiae of our lives to the sweeping realities of the new heavens and the new earth. The pulsing challenge at the heart of the book is to find our contentment and satisfaction not in ourselves (whether our activity or achievements or even relationships) but in our God: Father, Son and Spirit. This is a book to make us stop and think, which, for all of us, is an increasingly pressing need.

Faithfully Present is a refreshing tonic for the soul wearied by our culture’s call to do more, be more and achieve more. Beautifully written and packed with theological riches, it is an invitation to receive the limits of time and place as gracious gifts from an infinitely wise and loving Father. Adam shows how embracing these limits is the pathway to greater peace and deeper joy. His call to slow down and live fully present is desperately needed and delightfully liberating.

You cannot make time to read this wonderfully pastoral and theologically rich book. But that’s the point. We cannot make time; only God can. In our hurried, harried and distracted world, Adam Ramsey offers us a glimpse into a life lived faithfully and present-ly before God. With typical pastoral insight, Adam presents us with a picture of what an embodied, time-honouring, eternity-focused, faithfully present life looks like. And it looks like Jesus! As Adam shows, rather than us becoming frustrated, angry or despairing by our lack of time or the presence of our limits, we have a God who calls us to bring those lacks and limits to him, and who enables us to live faithfully present lives as we wait for time to end and eternity to begin. Take the time to read it!

Adam has blessed us with such a gift in this book. Faithfully Present is beautifully written and deeply convicting, yet packed with hope and joy. Don’t rush it. Don’t skim it. Take your time and sit with it. Engage with these pages at the heart level…and watch what God does in your life through it.