Drew Moser - Ready or Not

I can think of no two people better equipped to help twentysomethings make the most of these volatile years. I wish I had this book when I finished college almost five years ago. Read this book and live your life with worshipful intentionality.

Chris Martin, founder of MillennialEvangelical.com and development specialist at LifeWay Christian Resources

This probing and practical book consolidates the best Christian thinking on lifes purpose and presents it in an engaging way. In the midst of many competing messages about what young adulthood is about, I hope every twentysomething will prayerfully engage this work among friends.

Katelyn Beaty, author of A Womans Place and Christianity Today editor at large

In Ready or Not we are invited into a conversation about the most important things in life... hope, purpose, and meaning. Taking serious questions seriously, the book is a remarkable guide for those wanting honest help along the way as vocations are formed and loves become incarnate. Never ivory-tower, Drew Moser and Jess Fankhauser draw on hours and years of life in the world of twentysomethings, offering the wisdom and experience born of their own thoughtful engagement of the challenges facing folks in college and beyond who want to make sense of life, who they are, why they are, and how they are going to live.

Steven Garber, author of Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good and professor of marketplace theology and leadership, Regent College

Drew and Jess seem to have their fingers on the pulse of this generation and the hope, dreams, and questions that each of us face. If you are in your twenties and find yourself looking for wisdom and insight into your life, read this book.

Nathan Clarkson, actor, filmmaker, and bestselling author of Different, www.nathanclarkson.me

Ready or Not takes an in-depth look into the hopes, fears, questions, and realities of what its like to be a twentysomething in the world today. It offers wisdom for those who want to make these years count. The authors know their audience and have provided a very hopeful tool for this generation.

Ben Nugent, national director, Nav20s (The Navigators)

NavPress is the publishing ministry of The Navigators, an international Christian organization and leader in personal spiritual development. NavPress is committed to helping people grow spiritually and enjoy lives of meaning and hope through personal and group resources that are biblically rooted, culturally relevant, and highly practical.

For more information, visit www.NavPress.com.

Ready or Not: Leaning into Life in Our Twenties

Copyright 2018 by Drew Moser and Jess Fankhauser. All rights reserved.

A NavPress resource published in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

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Cover illustration of map copyright by Adrian Hillman/Adobe Stock. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of vintage paper copyright by Lost and Taken. All rights reserved.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc.

Names have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version. Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

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Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-63146-796-7

ISBN 978-1-63146-798-1 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-63146-799-8 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-63146-797-4 (Apple)

Build: 2018-02-01 15:56:57 EPUB 3.0.1

From Drew

To the members of the Philadelphia Project, a group of dear friends who walked with me in my twenties. You provided hope, meaning, and purpose. I pray all twentysomethings have friends like you.

From Jess

To the many mentors and teachers who walked with me through my twenties. And to my brother, Josh. What a privilege it has been to have lived so much of my twenties alongside you.

Not all those who wander are lost.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Think and wonder. Wonder and think.

Dr. Seuss

Sometimes we discover something we knew all along, but now we really know. Something that stops us dead in our tracks. This happened to Juan.

Juan, a twenty-six-year-old sales professional, looked at his phone to check the time: 6:30 p.m. It had been another long day at the office, and it was time to go home. A forty-five-minute commute awaited him. He shrugged his shoulders, sighed, and packed his messenger bag. Then he logged off his computer, exited his workstation, and walked through his office suite, saying good-bye to a few of his coworkers.

Juans career as an effective sales rep for a large food company looked bright. He was hitting his sales target, his bosses were taking notice, there was plenty of room for advancement, and his company was growing. But something that happened earlier in the afternoon had shaken him, and he was trying to make sense of it.

A few hours earlier, he had attended a company-wide sales meeting intended to rally the troops, cast vision, and inspire reps to meet new targets. Juan had no problems with any of this. He was a hard worker, an achiever who liked a challenge. What shook him was a specific phrase the corporate head of sales used one of those simple, matter-of-fact statements that suddenly caused Juan to take a step back and see the world around him more clearly.

From the podium, the head of sales had exclaimed, The reasons for these new sales targets? More profit. Happier shareholders. Simple as that.

Juan gulped. Hed known all along that companies need to make money, and investors invest money to make more of it. But he was suddenly struck with the realization that all of his twelve-hour workdays, all of his achieving and striving, all the saying no to friends who wanted him to knock off early to have dinner out were simply to meet a corporate bottom line.