Top Ten Recommended Reading

Of the 34+ books that I have read this year, I wanted to provide a list of the top ten that I recommend to others. The decisions were not easy, but here are the ten I chose.

1. Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
2. Marriable - Hayley and Michael DiMarco
3. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - C. S. Lewis
4. The Art of Connecting - O. S. Hawkins
5. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
6. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
7. The Screwtape Letters - C. S. Lewis
8. Saint Francis of Assisi - G. K. Chesterton
9. The Praise of Folly - Desiderius Erasmus
10. The Words - Jean-Paul Sartre
    

Eating The Word, Throwing Up Wisdom

Psalm 37:30-31 says, “The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.” Here is the problem: my mouth often opens to speak words that are either spoken too soon or too sharp. Oftentimes I speak out of folly and not wisdom. I do a lot of complaining. My steps often slip in my speech life. For example, this summer I judged a person too quickly and spoke bad things about him. However, after getting to know him better, I now feel bad for the things I said. I wish I could take them back, but I can't.

Here is the solution to my problem: I must always be in God’s word. I must eat it as I eat food. Three times a day I will read from a passage of Scripture. My plan is to read the Old Testament in the morning with breakfast, a chapter of Proverbs with lunch, and the New Testament with supper. I have to replace all those negative words with positive words from God Almighty. My desire is to reach the point when people automatically come to me for wisdom and not simply joining me in complaining.

In addition to that, I make it my aim to memorize a verse of Scripture each day. Pretty soon I will have hidden a good bit of God’s Word in my heart. I pray that the Holy Spirit will cause me to remember the Scriptures that I have remembered in the exact moment that I need them.

Praise Him

As I read Psalm 145, certain verses seemed to leap off the page and stirred my mind. Verse two says, “Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever.” God has blessed me with so many gifts and things I do not deserve that my only response to Him is praise. However, I must confess that I do not praise Him enough. I mean really praising the Lord of all creation who is the King of the universe. The Psalmist said, “Every day I will bless You.” I, from this point on, desire to specifically and intentionally praise God everyday, and to bless His name. This can only be accomplished in my life by disciplining myself in this area. May I always be mindful of my Creator!

Verse four also got me to thinking about my future. It says, “One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.” When I have children (Lord willing) I want to talk to them about the mighty things of God. I want to pass down the faith from my generation to the next. Just earlier this semester, I coached about twelve third and fourth graders, so I had ample opportunity to relate the things of God to the next generation. May God help me to do so!

I just want to include verse eight because it has been close to my heart for many years. Here the psalmist says, “The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.” I have learned so much about who God is through the Psalms.

Questions in the Bible

The Bible sets people thinking. In the 1,189 chapters there are 3,298 questions. Only 453 chapters are without a question. One chapter, Job 38, has as many as 40 questions; 2 Samuel 19 has 22 questions; while in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 9 stands first with 20 questions, closely followed by John 7, with 19 questions.