I’m back after a long hiatus from writing on my blog. My wife, Terri, and I enjoyed a few days at St. Augustine Beach with our family and then Terri and I took time for ourselves to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary by taking a cruise to the Western Caribbean. It was a great two weeks of getting away from the responsibilities of life and enjoying family and replenishing our batteries. The picture at the top of the page comes from one of the many beautiful sights that we enjoyed (about an hour south of Playa del Carmen, Mexico). Interestingly, one of the many highlights of our getaway was the opportunity to sit, relax, and enjoy a good book. Terri read a great book that I would highly recommend and one that I have read about and hope to read soon, “The Shack.” I have been leisurely strolling through the world of the Narnia. What a great joy to read through this masterful work of art penned by the great C. S. Lewis. I still have the last couple of books to read and can’t wait to steal away a few minutes here and there to dive into this wonderful fantasy world. This series should be a requirement for every Christian. The picture that Lewis paints of Aslan is a most powerful description of Christ that creates within me and even greater awe, reverence, and love for Christ.
You could say that over the years I have become a reading junky. I am addicted to reading just about everything I can get my hands on. Everywhere I go I carry a book with me so that if I have some down time I can read. Also, I always have my blackberry through which I can read blogs, news, and so much more. I have discovered that the more I learn the more I realize how much I don’t know. Terri and I now have our children reading everyday which will hopefully become an acquired taste for them as it has for us. I also did not always enjoy reading. As a child my mother tried to get me to read but I had absolutely no interest. When I became a Christian in my senior year of high school I began to get a taste for the value of reading as I picked up books like C. S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity.” In my first semester of college I remember a professor going to great lengths to impress upon us the importance of reading. God has since created in me an insatiable hunger to learn and grow and read all that I can. Now my daily reading consists of the Bible, blogs, magazines, journals, online news, fiction, nonfiction, and so much more. I have several books in the lurch waiting for me when I finish Narnia: “The Shack” by William Young, “Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations” by Robert Schnase, “Adam” by Ted Dekker, and “More to be Desired than Gold” by one of my seminary professors, Christy Wilson. I can’t wait to dig into these works and mine all their precious jewels.
I recently became aware of just how much I have read these past 30 plus years as our church just finished remodelling our offices. Terri and my family helped me to put my office back together and I was amazed at the number of books that I have. I look forward to continuing to add more and more to my library as a testimony of God’s work of creating a hunger in me to continue to grow in understanding all that there is of God, myself, and this world.
Drop us a note here and tell us what you are reading?
1 Comment
August 5, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Your love of reading is obvious in your blogs, your sermons and your life. C.S.Lewis was a magnificent writer. A movie you might want to see, if you have not already is Shadowland starring Anthony Hopkins. In this movie about the life and love of C.S. Lewis explains the struggles he went through to write. The movie added a personal dimension and Anthony Hopkins portrays C.S. Lewis just as he is in my imagination. What a treasure it would have been to sit down with this writer…and now I treasure the times through your blogging that I can sit down with you, the writer. Keep blogging, what a pleasure to read.