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I have this ongoing problem. Maybe you can relate. I love books. My problem is that I’ll read major parts of a book and then never come back to it. In other words, I never finish a book. This problem of reading books this way comes to my mind because I realized today that the two same books have been sitting on my nightstand for well over a year. I’ve barely read them. I just re-read the preface and introduction over and over again. So in my quest to rethink how I read to grow spiritually, I found this statement by D. Whitney:

Reading for sheer enjoyment was long ago forsaken.  Reading for Christian growth rarely happens. Most days, a few minutes in the Bible is all that’s left of their reading.  Those who love to learn and those who want to grow grieve the loss of reading like the loss of a close friend.

I think this is true for so many people who are brilliant thinkers; people who love to learn new things but since there is no formal reason to actually read they often stop reading completely. It’s probably why we at times crave formality; a big reason why we have book clubs and formal study groups. I might be wrong but my hunch is that most people aren’t in formal or organized group situations to help them grow. I think Whitney’s right: people today simply aren’t reading very much. And the truth of the matter is that our lives are jammed with so many obligations that reading is in some sense the last thing we think of doing. Unfortunately if we stop learning, we stop growing which is a sobering thought as I think of the fact that God gave us these minds to absorb and reflect on truth.

So I like Whitney’s solution. What if we all just did this: read just one page every day. Sort of reminds me of my dad that use to say to me to just save a dollar a day. So as you’re walking out to the mail box, pick up that book and read a page. Brushing your teeth? Read a page. Just before you turn down the lights, read a page. When you’re just about ready to get out of your car and head into the office, pick up that book and read a page or two. Waiting for your car to warm up? Read a page. Waiting in your car at a drive-thru because the van in front of you is ordering for a family of ten, read a page. Blog? Face Book? Read a couple of pages…

You get the point. Maybe we can’t read thousands of pages a day but when someone asks if we can read just one page we almost roll our eyes and shrug our shoulders as if to to say that’s almost too easy. Here’s then another point: If you can read one page a day you’ll have read 365 pages a year which is roughly a book or two depending upon its size.

At first that doesn’t seem all that much but if you really think about it, it’s not all that little either. If I live another forty years I’ll have read close to eighty books. I mean if I can say that I’ve read eighty books by having just read one page a day think of what two or three or ten pages would produce in my life. Now maybe that doesn’t seem like a ton to all of you but at least I’ll be able to say I finally cleared off my night stand…

There’s always room in our day to learn something new; it’s never too late to grow.