Life Disciplines: Reading

A few years ago, I remember my friend, Brandi, trying this idea. I decided to try it without much success. I got bogged down and couldn’t recover. In a recent discussion with Brandi, I realized that she was trying it again. One of the things that she reiterated was that she was not going to get bogged down. If she missed a day, then she just moved on and picked it up again the following week.

All that said - onto the subject of this post.

Reading

Do you have shelves and shelves of books that you want to read but never get to? Possibly you have a mile-long (or close) list of books that have been recommended and you want to check them all out. Maybe you have a burning desire to regularly visit the library for yourself, not just your children.

Therefore we come to the discipline of reading non-fiction books that can be used by the Lord to teach new and practical skills for living while glorifying Him.

I believe that the Bible is the ONLY book that is 100% true and 100% God inspired. I do not feel there is an equal, nor do I feel that there is a book that can accurately and effectively teach as well as the Bible teaches, since the Bible is NOT just literature. That said… I do think that God uses His people to effectively write books that reiterate His truths and give help in practical aspects of living. Likewise, I believe that God uses non-believers to write books that we can read and learn from. We must use discernment in anything we read. Basically books are great, but should never be used above of or in place of God’s Holy Word.

I love this quote from Charlie "Tremendous" Jones - "You are the same today you’ll be in five years except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read."  So I say that you should be extra careful of what you spend your time reading!

So, here’s the “how to”. Each day of the week I am reading portions of books; one book each day. Currently I am trying to read 1 chapter in each book, but that may fluctuate depending on the depth of the book and the material it covers. This is done after I have my daily Bible reading and prayer. I am currently in 3 differently Bible studies, so I am spreading those out over the month.

I snagged Brandi’s “days” and I’ll share them here along with the books I am currently reading in each of the categories. These “days”/categories made sense to me. I renamed them to be me-style and added the last one. The links go to amazon, though we usually buy our used books through www.abebooks.com. I like their pricing/shipping structure better.

Monday	Growing in God	Disciplines of a Beautiful Woman
Tuesday	Growing through Marriage	Love Your Husband Love Yourself
Wednesday	Growing through Parenting	When You Feel Like Screaming
Thursday	Growing through Health	Thin Within (one “day” per week) Made to Crave *I changed direction here because I just needed something different.
Friday	Growing through Homemaking	From Clutter to Clarity
Saturday	Just Because	Quilted with Love

*I'm not "recommending" these books. I have only read one of them all the way through before and even that one was read at a very different time in my life. 

Brandi reminded me that life is not a race and neither does it matter how quickly we get through the books we have on our shelves. Since non-fiction books are general thinking material, I thought this would work out best for me and my ADD brain to not get bogged down and hyper-focused. And I simply must remember to just keep moving past perfectionism.

picture from: http://www.page1book.com/