Making Sense of It All
A Pastor’s Best Guesses about God’s Good Story
Imprint: Resource Publications
Making Sense of It All invites us to experience a good God who actively woos us to himself, even (or especially) through our heartaches and setbacks. With a pastor's heart and fifty years of pastoral ministry, Richard Hipps weaves together biblical truths, storytelling, and the wisdom of fellow strugglers to draw us closer to God's heart. His reflections will have you affirming with him that God is trustworthy--that a good God is telling a good story that will have a good ending.
Richard S. Hipps is a retired minister living in Memphis, Tennessee. He is a graduate of Brevard College, Mars Hill University, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Vanderbilt University. He was also a visiting scholar in Christian Ethics at Harvard Divinity School. He is the editor of When a Child Dies: Stories of Survival and Hope (1996; 2008).
“Pastor Hipps is a man acquainted with grief, and also with joy. All the stories he tells, by way of illustrating matters of faith, show God’s grace at work in human hearts. I can’t think of anything more the world needs today than stories like these which refract the light of God’s good story into our daily lives.”
—Susan S. Phillips, author of The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy
“Forged in the depths of doubt and despair, Making Sense of It All is rooted in Richard Hipps’ core Christian belief that ‘a good God is telling a good story that will have a good ending.’ Don’t be surprised if you experience a surge of hope, gratitude, and joy reading this book, especially if you’ve been feeling bereft, beleaguered, or confused.”
—Lee Kravitz, author of Unfinished Business: One Man’s Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things
“Writing with the accumulated wisdom of decades of fruitful ministry, Richard Hipps offers readers a rich feast of pastoral and theological wisdom. Throughout this book, in every chapter, every page, deep calls to deep, offering readers both comfort and hope. Making Sense of It All is the book you should press into the hands of people facing heartaches and trials. They will thank you.”
—Cheryl Bridges Johns, director, Pentecostal House of Study, United Theological Seminary
“These pages come from a pastor’s heart that repeatedly affirms that ‘a good God is telling a good story that will have a good ending.’ The whole book might be summarized with this one sentence: ‘The worst thing that ever happens to you will not be the final thing. Love will have the final move.’ If you finish the book convinced of this . . . well, only God knows what might happen then.”
—David C. Stancil, retired pastor and professor
“In this book, Richard Hipps shares a story of his encounter with John Wimber. Like most useful stories, it chronicles a conversion of thinking. An ‘aha’ moment. An epiphany. I would like to hear more epiphanies from the pulpit. Most of us hope that our pastors grow with time, but we rarely learn the intimate details of that metamorphosis that might help them seem more human to us. Richard shares those details.”
—Diane Komp, professor emeritus of pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine