Customer Reviews

Things Unseen: Living with Eternity in Your Heart

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Likely the most soul touching book I've ever read. Buchanan gets at the heart of it all. His delightful wordcraft and written portraiture give his thoughts a unique depth and resonance. This book moved me in ways I have never previously experienced. It opened up the big questions and gave solid well rounded perceptions from both intellect and many personal illustrations. Buchanan has made himself someone that I'd really like to meet and I know that from what he's written, I will some day. I'd just love to give this book to every one of my friends. I've already started. You will absolutely love this book!

Before this, I was unfamiliar with Mark Buchanan's writing. In fact, having received this book as a gift, I took my time getting around to it.

Too bad. Buchanan's writing is smooth and beautiful. He weaves words with rare skill, communicating deep thoughts with sparkling threads of sentences. Quickly, we are wrapping ourselves in these thoughts. He reminds us that heaven is our goal, that we are not intended for ultimate fulfilment on this earth but for a celestial culmination in God's presence.

Ah, the warmth of it all. Except...

Except that Buchanan does not only encourage us for the hereafter, he challenges us in the here and now. His threads, so warm and comforting, become earthy and gritty clothing by which we march on into each day with a purpose. This is what makes "Things Unseen" so moving. The book demands that we realign our perspective. Buchanan tears down our facades and tells us to be so earthly minded that we are of some heavenly good.

I was inspired and convicted by the truths in these pages. Heaven is real...What a beautiful sight! And what a source of motivation for our lives here on earth.

I'm reading this book mainly because I liked his first book "Your God is too Safe". I'm not sure that this book is as life-changing as the first one but it is quite good. I particularly have liked his discussion of Heaven as our "flag" to stir us to battle. Buchanan encourages us to become so "heavenly minded that we become earthly good." This is a good book for helping you to follow that quote.

This life is only temporary. There is a world beyond it, a better one, called Heaven, which we all long for deep in our spirits. That is the main message of this book.

No matter what faith you adhere to, there is the constant longing for more life, but also the longing to go beyond this one, for something more. We seek miracles and other things in endless quests to discover a piece of that in the here and now. Even as we dread death, we long for it, for passage beyond this life into eternity. With that in mind, we should reguard all that is here as temporary, therefore, both more and less important. It is more important because the things that are good are only momentary and can disappear with no warning, yet less important because they are so. Therefore, the painful, irratating, bad things are to be taken as just a brief trial that is refining us for the Kingdom of God.

Citing both the Bible and popular media, the author clarifies these and other points in an insightful, easy to understand book that will appeal to a broad range of readers. It is comforting, yet thought provoking and should make the essential library shelf of both Christians and philosophers of any faith.

This is a book that I wish I could convince everyone to read, especially my family members who do not have faith. I see the longing in their lives and wish they could understand where it comes from. If I could leave one message when I pass away, it would be for them to read this book and understand why I have the hope I have. Mark Buchanan explains the feelings in our hearts so eloquently. He puts answers to the questions we all have about life. Great work.