If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This is a saying I have heard many times over the years. I have no idea who said it first, but I think there is some significant wisdom in it, and I say that as someone who really struggles to plan ahead! If you want to read the Bible and stick with it, you need to find a good plan that works for you and do it. And if you want to read good books, it helps to make a plan, otherwise your good intentions will remain just that. So how can we become better readers?
Setting Goals
Well, first of all, I would suggest setting a goal of a certain number of books to read this year. Yes, I know that it’s already June and the time for New Year’s resolutions was more than six months ago, but it’s not too late to give yourself a bit of a challenge. If you’re a naturally competitive person, you can set goals and then see if you can beat them. Even if you start with a very modest goal, you may be surprised at how many books you can read, if you give yourself the challenge. I started doing this in 2018 using the reading challenge at goodreads.com, and have met or exceeded my personal goal every year since except 2022. Just knowing that I have given myself a target at which to aim helps me choose to read, when I might choose to do some other activity, especially in my leisure time. So set a goal – even just 12 books in a year – and then see how you do. Remember that this is not a law you must follow, but a personal challenge to accept. Even if you fail to reach your goal, the effort you make will be worth it, and you might be surprised at how much you can get done.
Mix It Up
I became a pastor in 2011 and began immediately to immerse myself in reading for my vocation: theology, Bible interpretation, pastoral counseling, commentaries, etc. In very short order I set aside pretty much every other kind of reading including biographies, history, and science fiction, my long time guilty pleasure. The result was that over time I began to actually read less and less until I found myself kind of burned out on reading just about anything, and I realized that reading was no longer enjoyable. My solution was to put down some of the heavy theological tomes I had thought I needed and pick up a biography or a novel or some other book just as a change of pace. I found I could go back to more serious works with more enthusiasm, when I allowed myself some time to read just for fun.
You can read fluff once in a while, but if you make it a steady part of your diet, you’ll become mentally, spiritually, and emotionally malnourished.
Since then, I have continued to read a variety of different genres and types of literature. For example, in 2022 I read books ranging from David McIntyre’s The Hidden Life of Prayer to Charles Darwin’s The Origin of the Species to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Walking Drum by Louis L’amour. I read The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois (to get another perspective from Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, which I read in a previous year), Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and The Last Lion: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 by William Manchester on the life of Sir Winston Churchill. I also read two of Dean Koontz’ Odd Thomas novels and The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter. My favorite book of that year was probably The Words of the Covenant: A Biblical Theology, Volume 1 – Old Testament Expectation by Paul Henebury, although Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin also received a five-star review. My point in sharing all this is simply to demonstrate that you don’t have to get locked into one theme or genre. I think that reading a diverse selection of books can help you to keep making progress without becoming stuck in a rut.
A Book for Every Situation
To that end, here’s another suggestion from my own experience. Sometimes you just don’t feel like reading that book. I get it. It happens to me a lot, so I tend to have several books going at any given time, and I try to take advantage of my circumstances to make the most of each opportunity. Some books are great for just relaxing at the end of the day – these could be “fun” books like novels or lighter nonfiction or a Christian biography. Other books might go well with your daily Scripture reading and meditation, like a systematic theology (I know most people don’t think about reading these, but I try to include at least one every year. Charles Ryrie’s Basic Theology or The Moody Handbook of Theology by Paul Enns could be read in short increments over the course of several months to a year.) There may be books you can read out loud to your kids (these count, too!) or even your spouse (and these don’t have to just be about marriage). And then there are books that require you to set time aside and remove all distractions if possible, so you can give them the focused attention they require. (That’s probably not the best one to leave on the back of the toilet, but that’s a judgment you’ll have to make.)
Not Just Cotton Candy
There’s absolutely nothing of nutritional value in a bag of cotton candy. Sure, it tastes good for a minute and may even bring back memories of childhood, but we all know that you can’t survive on sugar alone. If you eat too much of it, not only will you suffer malnutrition, you will spend a lot of your money at the dentist and probably experience a whole list of other health problems. The same thing is true when it comes to reading. You can read fluff once in a while, but if you make it a steady part of your diet, you’ll become mentally, spiritually, and emotionally malnourished.
The solution is the same: choose a good balance of books and limit your intake of sweets. To this end it may be helpful to use a reading challenge like the one posted by Christian blogger Tim Challies every year. His light reader challenge includes one from each of these categories:
- A book about a current issue
- A biography
- A classic novel
- A book about history
- A book targeted at your gender
- A book about theology
- A book with at least 400 pages
- A book about Christian living
- A book more than 100 years old
- A book published in 2024
- A book for children or teens
- A book of your choice1
Set a goal. Make a plan. Mix it up. And read good books that will help you to grow as a person and a follower of Jesus Christ.
1 The entire post explaining the challenge may be found here: https://www.challies.com/resources/2024-christian-reading-challenge/