God’s Plans for You (J.I. Packer, 2001)

I have only been in J. I. Packer’s presence once. He lectured at a conference, and I approached him afterwards with a question. “Oh, I would have thought that obvious,” he said, before helping me to understand why it should have been. Some of us need help thinking through what we believe, and for that, J. I. Packer is a wonderful mentor. God’s Plans for You is a collection of 15 succinct essays on a variety of topics from joy to poor health to sanctification to church reformation. The chapter “Guidance: How God Leads Us,” for example, is worth the price of the book. “The aim throughout [the book],” Packer says, “is to show how life looks and feels when lived by faith in the sovereign God of the Bible, and to help in forming attitudes, focusing values, and making decisions amid the perplexing cross-currents of decadence in the culture and the church.” As with all his writing, Packer is never dry, and his passion for truth, love of God, and clarity of thought always leads us not just to faithfulness, but to adoration.