...to start reading 5 books at one time. Having just gone through a period of months of no reading, I was browsing through Matt's parents' bookshelf and picked up a stack of books that caught my eye. The 5 that I thought weren't novels got my interest because I thought they'd offer encouragement for me and/or someone I know. I've never tried reading multiple books at once, but I was equally interested in all of them so why not?
The first day a read a few pages of each and was enjoying my newfound method. The second day I was down to 2 and continued those two for a little while. After that, I went a couple of weeks of no reading. Then I got back to one and finished the whole thing and now I'm almost finished with one of the ones I dropped early on. Oh- I didn't mention that somewhere in there, Matt decided he would read me his 700+ page book about a Navy SEAL, so I've been listening to that for the past week or so too. (It's very good!) So maybe reading 5 books at once is not my thing, but I'm learning a lot and thought I'd share....
This is the first book I finished. It is a copy of the letters sent back and forth between a skeptical, unbelieving father to his son, who specializes in theological philosophy.
If you're part of our family, you know that there has been a lot of talk in our house about the tough questions of faith in the last 5 years. For awhile, I addressed those issues with just simple faith, not really thinking too hard about them (I am NOT much of a deep thinker and get lost very easily in philosophy) or looking much into the issues. More recently, I've felt a greater need to have some answers. Not that God must answer for the way he works, but that I should be able to answer for why I believe what I do, as opposed to just going by what I've been told. I do believe the Holy Spirit plays a huge role in telling us what is true, but I also really appreciated looking at some of the intellectual reasons to believe in this book. By the end, I was totally hooked on it, which doesn't happen very often in non-fiction books for me.
Some of the interesting questions to ponder and hear the author's answers to were why God allows evil, how we can believe the Bible is true, what evidence is there that Jesus was God's son, why God destroyed (or encouraged his people to destroy) so many people in the Old Testament stories, and can people who do not consciously know Jesus still receive salvation from him.
Two things in general that have come out of this book for me are 1) The author emphasizes so much that Jesus was God in the flesh and one of the reasons he came to earth was to show us what God was like. Though I knew this before, I think I held God and Jesus in much more separate views than is true. The author came back to this point on several questions his dad had about how God could do such and such. His answer was to look to what we know God is like based on Jesus's life, rather than our personal misconceptions we hold on to about God.
2) I am now very much of the opinion that no one has the right answer to many of life's toughest questions and I am more open-minded to ideas that people who are deeply rooted in their brand of theology would not consider. I used to think that I was right about theological issues (i.e. everything the PCA church thinks they are right about) and while others who disagreed may still be Christians, they were most certainly wrong about these things.
Now I think we're probably all wrong and those issues don't even seem important to me anymore. I am more interested in finding out for myself what I believe and in others finding what they believe, than in everyone saying they believe the same thing--particularly when they don't even know why they believe it! I think we can be most genuinely unified as believers by focusing on the core of Christianity--loving God and each other and imitating Jesus's life.
Better Than My Dreams: This is one I only read one day, so can't really comment too much about it. The subtitle says, "Finding what you long for where you might not think to look." Sounded intriguing to me and I can always use some encouragement in crushing the "grass is always greener" mentality. We'll see what the author has to say and I'll let you know if I find it helpful.
A Year with C S Lewis- Now this one I also didn't get far with and there's only one page to read for every day of the year!! Seemed easy to just pick it up for a quick read once a day and I haven't read any of Lewis's nonfiction, but loved The Chronicles of Narnia books, so thought I'd try to hear a little more from this guy. Oh well, maybe I'll get back into it one day. I'm honestly finding him a little difficult to understand. There was so much richness in Narnia and I loved being able to get a different picture of who God is and how Jesus works in us through the characters. But so far I've found it hard to wrap my brain around a lot of his wording. Must have lost a few brain cells over the years b/c most people I know love this guy's stuff!
Bringing Out the Best in Your Husband- Now this one I chose for obvious reasons. I know I don't see all my faults but I definitely understand that I'm lacking in the encourage your husband area. For one thing, I think I'm always right and need to correct all of Matt's misconceptions, ideas that would turn out bad, etc. I'm about halfway through this one and it's been a great way for me to see how I'm the one that's wrong and needs change. It's not that what it says is so mind-blowing, but like reading well-written books on parenting, sometimes you just need to refocus and remember the things you already know about fulfilling your role well. Reading it helps remind me throughout the day to correct some of my bad habits, that I imagine many wives fall into. Definitely recommend it.
So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore- I'm finding this one really interesting and it's the one I'm focusing on right now. I picked it up, not because I don't want to go to my church anymore, but because I've heard a lot of frustration about church from various sources lately. It actually is a novel about a guy who was on staff at a big church and found himself feeling less than passionate about life and faith, though he was throwing everything he had into the ministry. Along comes a guy who challenges much of the way he has thought all his life about his relationship with God and the church.
Something that I'm thinking about that keeps coming up in my life is the idea that we focus too much about our part of our relationship with God. We think about what we need to do and where we fail and how others fail and what God wants from us and how we can please him. We find ourselves trying harder to make the relationship work but feeling distanced from God. But what I've been hearing a lot lately is that we should focus on how much God loves us and what he's done for us and what he can do and what he wants to do in us. It really is different!
I think about how excited I used to feel when I first figured out that God wanted to know me and how my main focus then was just my love for him. Now when I pray I'm often thinking about how I should probably not even be asking God for anything because I fall so short of who he wants me to be. That doesn't create a whole lot of passion or excitement. But when I turn my perspective around and focus on the truth that no matter what I do, he could never love me more or less than he does right now, then wow-- that is a different subject. It not only inspires more love for him, but more trust and peace and passion and desire to pray. And if I'm understanding this book's perspective, the stuff like stronger character, serving others more, spiritual growth, will flow from that close relationship with God instead of vice versa.
The other thing that I always need a good perspective on is dealing with things not going my way. Here's a quote from the book that I found interesting:
Suffering often indicates that God is setting us free from something so we can follow and embrace him more deeply. Walking in his life will always mean you are going against the grain. Don't expect your circumstances to conform easily to this journey. They will resist it at every turn. God wants to teach you how to walk with him through these things so that you can know a joy and peace that transcends circumstance...The hardest thing is this journey is to give up the illusion of controlling your own life or that you can manipulate God to bless you... You won't get far if you question his love for you every time he fails to meet your expectations....He is working through the brokenness of this world to accomplish something greater in you. Once you know that, even the sting of difficult circumstances will be blunted. You'll find him in the midst of them and watch him accomplish his purpose without your control. This is where his life truly begins to take hold in you." I don't know about you, but my joy and peace typically is directly related to my circumstance!
One final thing I really liked was the author's perspective on Jesus's death: "But that's not how God views the cross, Jake. His wrath wasn't an expression of the punishment sin deserves, it was the antidote for sin and shame. The purpose of the cross was for God to make his Son become sin itself so that he could condemn sin in the likeness of human flesh and purge it from the race. His plan was not just to provide a way to forgive sin but to destroy it so that we might live free."
The part I'm reading now is getting into a lot of the ways that the church falls short and how Christians can "be the church" and have better fellowship with each other. It's also very interesting but I think you'll agree I'm getting quite long-winded here!!
If you're still with me, thanks for reading, and feel free to share what great books you've read lately!
Then Joshua played a fishing "game" which was super lame, but he got to pick a prize and was thrilled.
