Why Should We Prioritize Reading?

Have you noticed all the pictures of books on various Instagram posts over the past few weeks?

I wonder how you respond to them–is it overwhelming, annoying, or do you take a screen shot so you can add them to your book list?

I wonder if you’ve thought about why we read. Why is it so important? Why do people write about it so much? I’ve been mulling it over since reading Tony Reinke’s recent post, How to Prioritize Reading. He shoots straight. “We will often neglect what we don’t prioritize.” It’s true. We do what we want, and if something isn’t important to us, we won’t do it. So I’ve been pondering, why don’t some Christians prioritize reading?

I think part of the answer is that we don’t know why we should prioritize it.

The root reason that I love to read is because it’s a means to growth. I’m a disciple of Christ, and disciples are learners. God is a speaking God. He values words and He gave us His Word to read. Therefore, I believe that reading is one of the primary means He has given for us to grow up in Him.

But as image bearers, we are speaking people. We speak to one another with our words, but we write, too. He has given some the extraordinary ability to put thoughts and ideas into words that affect our hearts towards Him. He loves to work through the instrument of words!  So words are for our growth and edification, and for the glory of God. We should want to give them and to receive them, and realize that we miss out on tremendous riches when we don’t take the time to read them.

But sometimes I hear, “I’m just not a big reader.” And I inwardly gasp in astonishment. “How is this possible?”  I get it, though. For some of us reading is a genuinely arduous task and hurdles need to be overcome to get us to actually enjoy reading.

The tyranny of the urgent is also partly to blame. I have five kids at home with me 24/7, so I don’t have all the time in the world to read. But I do read, and at a decent clip. But it’s important to me and I thoroughly enjoy it. We all have responsibilities, so that surely can’t be the main reason.

So I think that often, “I’m just not a big reader,” can be an excuse not to do hard work. We live in an instant culture. We want things fast and we don’t want to work for it. As a sister in Christ, it genuinely saddens me. For years before my kids are able to read, I whet their appetite for reading by telling them that it will open a whole new world for them. I believe it. When we open a book, we meet people, we visit different places, and we learn. But when we don’t read, our worlds can be very small and our perspectives dim.

If you’re one who’s “not a big reader,” I want to invite you to put that mantle down, and pick up the mantle of “Reader.” I want to invite you to imagine the potential that awaits you when you open a book…to consider why reading just might be something you should make a priority to work at in 2020.

You don’t need to dive into a Russian classic or a systematic theology book (but you’re welcome to!).

As your sister who doesn’t want you to miss out on a single good thing the Lord has for you, I want to give you five reasons why you should consider prioritizing reading this year, with a few troubleshooting ideas at the end.

1. Reading will help you grow as a disciple

We are commanded to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deut. 6:5). Loving God requires effort on our part, and part of that effort involves receiving regular input from other believers. As we consider the perspectives of others who have wrestled through something long and hard enough to write about it, we are encouraged, convicted, spurred on, and sharpened.

We need the global body of Christ, past and present (Heb 12:1) to help us grow up in Christ. When we open a book, we are opening our heart to receive grace through an instrument of our Redeemer. Proverbs says that there’s safety and victory when we have an abundance of counsel (Pr. 11:14, Pr. 24:6), and one way we receive the counsel of others is through words they’ve put down on paper.

John Piper said, “Books don’t change people, paragraphs do — sometimes sentences.” [1] And I agree. But it’s often in books that we find those pieces of gold. And, there are those rare books that bring about monumental “Aha!” moments of such cataclysmic proportions, they can change your course entirely. But you’ll never encounter it if you don’t pick one up.

2. Reading will help you grow as a wife

The same principles from my first point can follow here, but I want to finish the command. Jesus said in Mark 12:28-31:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

As we choose to read books geared toward marriage, we have opportunities to purposefully grow in our marriage, or for singles, future marriages. This lifelong relationship is worthy of cultivating! But we don’t inherently know how to be a good wife. We need to learn, and the Bible tells us so (Tit. 2:3-5)! There are many women who have gone before us that we can learn from, and when we posture our hearts to receive humbly, we’ll find that we can glean so much.

We hold high standards for our men, whether we’re married or single. But I propose that in order to marry the kind of man, or to have the kind of future husband that we want to have, then we need to be the kind of woman that he would want to marry or be married to.

Reading books about marriage demonstrates a humility that says, “I need help.”

3. Reading will help you grow as a mom

I highlighted an important paragraph in Paul Tripp’s book, Age of Opportunity, that I think all parents need to grapple with, whether you have children beneath the roof or beyond. He says,

“When you challenge the influential voices in your teenager’s life, be sure you know what you are talking about. Parents often lose credibility because they are ill-informed. When you haven’t done your homework, you will resort to stereotypes, generalizations, rumors, and straw man characterizations. This weakens your teenager’s respect for the important things you have to contribute. She walks away thinking that you simply do not know what you’re talking about. If you want to instruct your teenager effectively and help her learn to filter the voices in her life, take time to do your research.”[2]

Ouch. But how many times do you know this to be true as an adult when relating to your own adult parents? Sadly, often times as children grow older, their parents aren’t the ones feel they can go to for counsel about important decisions or to share personal things.

Somewhere along the way, parents’ growth is often stunted. I believe it’s often in the middle years of parenting when the heat of the crucible is at its hottest.

Not only do we encounter more challenging parenting situations than we thought we would, but we’re getting older, we’re experiencing more losses, disappointments, and trials with each passing year. If we are not intentionally keeping our hearts (Pr. 4:23), we may deny, numb out, or allow idols to creep in. The temptation toward lethargy in rooting out every day, common sins may increase.

So, read! Read to keep your heart encouraged. Read to understand your children. Read to know God. Read to be sharpened. Yes, read books about parenting. But read books about lament, too. And about envy, and about how sanctification works. And really good children’s fiction, too.

Read to be a better mom. Your kids just might thank you for it one day, and your future in-law children, too.

4. Reading will help you grow as a friend

In the spring of 2019, I co-taught a Sunday course for women at our church called, “A Biblical Theology of Hospitality.” One reason I loved it is because I had the opportunity to talk about friendship. I love friendship. But I have been very hurt in friendship through the years. It turns out not everyone knows how to be a friend, me included. So, I’ve spent a decent amount of time reading and thinking about what friendship is and how to be a good friend. Through my prayerful study, I’ve developed a theology of friendship, but I couldn’t have come to it alone! I’ve had the help of other women and men, who through their writing, have taught me.

I want to be a good friend, but goodness, obstacles abound. People are fascinating and complicated. We need to learn how to relate to people who are similar to us, but who are different, too. People who share similar preferences, and those that seem like they’re from another planet.

It is a gift to pick up a book about depression if I don’t struggle with it, to better understand my friend who does, and to learn how to help her walk through it. One of the most hurtful things we can do is speak into something we don’t know about or understand, as well meaning as we may be. It can be like vinegar on a wound (Pr. 25:20).

Part of being a good friend is drawing out the heart of another. The more you’ve been exposed to, the more things you have to talk about! The better questions you know how to ask.

So, read to grow as a friend

5. Lastly, reading will help you grow as a functioning member of the body of Christ

This is a tremendous reason to read.  Without developing the ability and discipline of hearing and learning from others, perspectives are limited.  Functional worlds are very small, and growth can be stunted.  It becomes difficult to see any perspective other than one’s own, and it becomes easy to insist on one’s own way

There will always be people we don’t like, circumstances that are less than ideal, people who think and do things differently from us, and needs that need to be met.

The Lord has given us each gifts to be employed, but we need to actually practice them for them to be of any value! We also need to grow in them. I’ve been told that I am a good counselor, but I know my deep desire to be a better counselor. I know I have room to grow. I want to be an increasingly skilled counselor, so I’ve given the past three years of my life to labor toward that end.

Paul is a model for me in this. He loved those that he ministered to! He selflessly, 1 Corinthians 13 loved them. So much so that he endured dire circumstances in order to keep on loving them. Listen to his words in Col. 1:28-29,

“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”

We need help loving other people. Yes, the Holy Spirit is at work within us, and the Word of God is sufficient for all of life. But part of the Lord’s design and intention in our life before Him is to have the help of the saints!

What joy would it be to still be doing life at 80 with the people we’re covenanted to locally in our 30s and 40s! To see many churches planted, many baptisms, many missionaries go out. There’s a lot we need to learn in order to remain in relationships that can weather that many decades of life.

So, read to be a true blessing to your local body of Christ, and one whom your leaders can lead with joy (Heb. 13:17).

Prioritizing Reading: How?

Check out Tony’s recent article that I mentioned earlier, because I believe you’ll be helped. The first step to prioritizing actually reading is to decide that it’s important. My husband is famous around here for saying, “You do what you want.” If you want something bad enough, you’ll make a way to do it.

I home school my children, which means I’m with people all the time and my days are quite full (and exhausting)! If anyone has an excuse not to read, it might be me. But I really don’t have any good excuses. It’s important to me.

So I think in order to prioritize reading, some of us need to wrestle down our resistance to it. Here are a few suggestions to help you get going on your reading journey:

1. Decide that reading is important.

2. If reading is an arduous task, consider audiobooks. They absolutely count as reading! Audible or Christian Audio aren’t the only options (though Christian Audio does give away one free book a month). Many local library systems have options for you to check out books that you can listen to on your phone, iPad, or computer.

3. Think about the nooks and crannies that you have throughout your day. If you have a nursing baby, there’s a nook! If you have a doctor’s appointment, there’s a cranny! If you have to wait in line to pick your kids up from school, there’s a nook! If you have a daily rest time for your kids, there’s a cranny! Are you about to pick up your phone and scroll through Instagram? There’s another nook!

Time isn’t as elusive as we think it is. We simply need to reclaim it rather than fritter it away. Ten minutes a day means 300 minutes in a month! Imagine what you can accomplish when you think about it that way. Ten minutes isn’t a worthless amount of time to spend reading.

4. I agree with Tony that reading more than one book at a time helps. I used to think I had a problem because I am always in the middle of several books at once. Without having the words to verbalize it until recently, it was helpful for me.

Too much of one thing at a time and I can start to zone out, especially if it’s longer. I also can’t read heady stuff at the end of the day when my brain is done. I read fiction at night and in the morning and afternoon I read more hearty, heady non-fiction. Giving my mind space to process different things allows me to take more in and to chew the cud, so to speak.

5. Start with things you’re interested in learning about, or that pertain to the stage of life you’re in. Don’t worry about what other people are reading, or at what pace they’re reading. The Lord has you on a journey and it won’t look just like your sister’s on Instagram.

6. Don’t limit yourself to one genre. Read the classics, read good fiction, read children’s fiction. Read theology, read science. Read discerningly from people who think differently than you do. I’ve spoken a lot about growing in Christ, but I don’t think it means we should only read books by Christian authors! God’s common grace is bestowed on all men, and we can both learn and enjoy what He’s given them to give to us.

We may not all become people who read 52 books a year, but we can be people who keep a regular pace of growth by exposing ourselves to a wide variety of good books. 2020 just may be the year that you actually discover you love reading, and if you don’t, you’re none the worse for it.

And, if you want some ideas, check back here soon, and I’ll have my own stacks to share with you.

 

[1] https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/books-dont-change-people-paragraphs-do

[2] Paul Tripp, Age of Opportunity, 239-240

Have you signed up for my newsletter? Once a month, I send thoughts about an aspect of what it means to be a life-giving woman. I would love to send it to you!