At the beginning of the year, I set out to read 36 books. While I’m behind on my goal, I have been finishing more books than normal – I have a bad habit of starting a lot of great books, but never finishing them!
I’m always curious to know what other people are reading, and thought it’d be fun to share a list of recent books I’ve read since this last post! I try to keep the list of books I’m reading varied and diverse!
1.The Knowledge of the Holy – A.W. Tozer
“The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him. To fear and not be afraid – that is the paradox of faith.”
2. We Were The Lucky Ones – Georgia Hunter
“The exercise of deciding where to go next is difficult. Because next most likely means a new forever.”
3. Deep Work – Cal Newport
“If you keep interrupting your evening to check and respond to e-mail, or put aside a few hours after dinner to catch up on an approaching deadline, you’re robbing your directed attention centers of the uninterrupted rest they need for restoration. Even if these work dashes consume only a small amount of time, they prevent you from reaching the levels of deeper relaxation in which attention restoration can occur. Only the confidence that you’re done with work until the next day can convince your brain to downshift to the level where it can begin to recharge for the next day to follow. Put another way, trying to squeeze a little more work out of your evenings might reduce your effectiveness the next day enough that you end up getting less done than if you had instead respected a shutdown.”
4. So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport
“Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.”
5. Only One Life – Jackie Green and Lauren Green Mcafee
Based on the following poem.
Only one life, yes only one,
Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet,
And stand before His Judgement seat;
Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
6. Finish – Jon Acuff
“Developing tolerance for imperfection is the key factor in turning chronic starters into consistent finishers.”
7. Every Square Inch – Bruce Ashford
Based on the famous Kuyper quote.
“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” – Kuyper
8. The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
“Champions don’t do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.”
“Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things.”
9. A Christian Manifesto – Francis Schaeffer
“True spirituality covers all of reality. There are things the Bible tells us to do as absolutes which are sinful- which do not conform to the character of God. But aside from these things the Lordship of Christ covers all of life and all of life equally. It is not only that true spirituality covers all of life, but it covers all parts of the spectrum of life equally. In this sense there is nothing concerning reality that is not spiritual.”
10. Humility – Andrew Murray
“Humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all.”
“Here is the path to the higher life: down, lower down! Just as water always seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds men abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.”
11. Spurgeon’s Sorrows – Zach Eswine
“We plead not ourselves, but the promises of Jesus; not our strengths but His; our weaknesses yes, but His mercies. Our way of fighting is to hide behind Jesus who fights for us. Our hope is not the absence of our regret, or misery or doubt or lament, but the presence of Jesus.”
12. Braving the Wilderness – Brené Brown
“When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of the individuals who serve that system or who are served by that system, you can be certain that the shame is systemic, the money is driving ethics, and the accountability is all but dead.”
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