One of the most important disciplines in our life is reading. God sovereignly chose to preserve the Bible in written form, God wrote the Ten Commandments with His finger. God created us, He created our minds, and in His choosing and planning everything He ordained that reading and writing are a major form of communicating, teaching, recording history, and learning. Every one of our kids when they were little loved for me to read to them. Often whenever I came home at least one of the youngest would come running to me with a book in their hand. Listening to someone teach and reading are the two major ways we learn and then we make it permanent in us by doing it, experimenting, and practicing.

So many adults because of busyness and life responsibilities quit reading. The day we quit reading is the day our brains start to decay. Reading is to our brain what walking, running and bicycling is to our legs. Quit exercising and you will get fat, weak, and very prone to getting sick.

When I first started Pastoring I read every book ever published on Church Growth and Health. I read biographies of healthy and growing churches, current and also historical. I read the Early Church Fathers, and I read lots of church history books. I read with a principle in mind, if Charles Spurgeon’s church grew rapidly with many thousands coming to faith in Christ, there was a reason, and I was bent on discovering that reason and putting it into practice in my own life.

Certain things you do religiously, not because it is fun but because it is right, good, and profitable for your life and promotes fruit-bearing in your life. Every person ought to make a reading goal for their life and constantly be pushing it higher. My reading goal for years has been 50 pages each week, but this year it is going to be 100 pages each week. There are so many good books, and I learn so much and I am very motivated by good books and the things that they teach in them. Some of them will be on fishing, hunting, rebuilding engines and cars, playing golf, and building things, but most will be on the book of 2 Peter, on demons and angels, on church growth and health, and on how to teach and preach better.

When Patty and I were raising our kids we read books on parenting together, and we read books on how to have a wonderful marriage together. Very few married couples do that today, takes too much time from their favorite television program.

We traveled a lot when I was a kid following my Dad on his ship. When we would drive from one port city to the next my Mom would check out a box full of books for me from the library to read while we were traveling. We had a Plymouth station wagon and the back seat faced backward. I would sit in that seat and read for hours and hours. That is probably why I don’t get motion sickness or seasick even in the worst of storms. But it is also the reason that I read so much now.