Redeem the Time

In this extraordinary book from former senator and New York Times bestselling author Ben Sasse offers deep reflections on faith, family and what it means to “redeem the time."

In December 2025, the 54-year-old otherwise healthy former university president, senator and professor made a shocking announcement. “This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.”

Doctors told him he probably had three months to live. But Sasse refused to retreat. He faced his “death sentence” with courage, clarity and a good dose of gallows humor, launching a podcast called Not Dead Yet. While undergoing aggressive treatments to shrink his tumors, he unexpectedly went viral as he spoke in depth and wrote movingly in columns and interviews about how we must all redeem the time. The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Ben Sasse is dying in plain sight… He has spoken to the world about his impending demise like a Christian philosopher of death—frank, unafraid, sometimes folksy, always graceful." The extraordinary response to his lessons about what truly matters in life—inspiring many—ultimately led him to write this book, alongside his daughter, recent college graduate Alex Sasse.

We’re all going to be pushing up daisies eventually. Wisdom requires us to grapple with our death and our finitude early. This remarkable book from Ben Sasse shows how we can all live—and die—well.