Shining shoes, standing in uniform at military formations, marching in parades, memorizing bits of trivia about military history. Thirty plus years ago my days were a blur of stress as I stumbled my way towards trying to graduate from West Point. Somehow with all that busy-ness I also was thinking about God and big ideas like, “Why did I exist?” and, “If there was a God was he the Christian version I had been taught in the Baptist church my mother took us to each Sunday in my childhood?”
Meanwhile, my sister was having a different experience in her college years. She might as well have been on a different planet for all its likeness to my world. She wasn’t shining any shoes. She wore whatever she wanted to class. Never had to learn the maximum effective range of a weapon. Never stood at the position of attention, not even once. Her attention was focused on absorbing the best information and guidance on faith and our creator at one of our nation’s finest Christian colleges. And by the grace of the one who is more powerful than all the armies of the world she shared some of that information with me. And my life was changed.
I was a horribly self-focused brother in those years and didn’t deserve her care for me. She is two years younger and I can remember being positively beastly toward her. Yet, disregarding any sense of justice she prayerfully took the time to write me numerous letters of encouragement and in one included a list of books which took me on a journey that led me to a faith that was logical and reasonable and satisfying.
In time the authors of those books came to be for me trusted guides to a worldview that gave me a purpose and bathed me in peace. I wish I could tell those authors how much their books helped my faith. I’d love to line them all up and give them a manly hug. Maybe one day. C. S. Lewis, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, John Stott, J. B Phillips, G. K. Chesterton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Frederick Buechner, J. I Packer, Charles Williams, Brother Lawrence, they each pushed me “further up and further in” as Lewis says in one of his books.
Through these authors God’s great love reached my heart, mind, and soul.
All this happened because of a list of books that a sister, who was praying for her brother, sent hoping he might crack a cover or two. Boy did I. Every one. Some, more than once.
I don’t know what you have going on right now, how life is for you. Maybe you got it all figured out and reading is not your thing and you can’t relate to all this. Or maybe you don’t have it all figured out and quite frankly you decided nobody does and this world is not the place to consider big ideas it is a world to make the cash, enjoy the ride and don’t dwell on the sadness, or the unsatisfying, or the fact that there is a suspense date on all this. Okay, if that is you, disregard what I am about to offer. Have a nice day anyway.
But if there is a sense somewhere inside that there has to be more. There has to be an anchor for all this shifting sand, there has to be dry land somewhere in your sea of meaninglessness, there has to be a reason to wake up beyond get more, get more, get more. If that is you, here is a list of books to lead you home. They are the light on the porch pointing the way when you have been out too late and you are in a blinding storm. It is okay to need a light on. My sister left one on for me. Here is mine for you:
https://thewaydisciplemaking.com/david-baums-recommended-reading/
David Baum 