...Not Read Every Christian Book, Blog, or Sermon

Perhaps the title alone makes this blog post null and void. So if you stop reading here, I won't really be that offended.

The pressure to read the best authors or bloggers is often a source of condemnation to me.

Around a year ago I got tired of people countlessly saying to me "Have you read [insert inspiring apologetics book]?" Or "Don't you just love [insert radical author]?" So I simply stopped reading anything but scripture. (Seriously.)

Francis Chan, C.S. Lewis, Charles Spurgeon, Bob Goff, Beth Moore, Shauna Niquist - they all have wonderful things to say. But I don't enough time in a day to read all the Christian rhetoric other Christians tell me to read.

Now, beyond just published authors, there are countless (some reputable, some self-proclaimed) bloggers and opinion leaders of the interwebs. A friend will send a link to a sweet blog of a non-profit founder. Relevant Magazine will post their latest article on Millenial-Christian-Culture. Jon Acuff will tweet another blurb about how fear is a lie. Sometimes it's a lot to take in.

Please know, the previous paragraph listed some of my favorite things in the world. Jon Acuff speaks a language that I get. I am a two year subscriber to Relevant Magazine (Cameron Strang, please hire me someday). I am an avid reader and encourage others to be well-read. But sometimes information overload kicks in, inadequacy abounds, and I feel like a failure  because of "Christian self-help".


Even as I write this I'm laughing at myself because I'M PUTTING MY OWN VERSION OF CHRISTIAN RHETORIC ON THE INTERNET FOR PEOPLE TO READ. My point is: my blog will not increase your faith because you listened to my ideas. And maybe best-selling, faith-based literature won't either. 

Confessions: I've never read The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I abandoned Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. I straight up wasn't interested in the last John Piper book I picked up. 

Am I less holy to you now? 

I'll let you contemplate that as I leave you with a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier.

"We search the world for truth;
We cull the good, the pure, the beautiful,
From all old flower fields of the soul;
And weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said,
Is in the Book our mothers read."

I wrote this in the front of my bible as a reminder that truth can be sought from even the wisest of men but I usually don't need to go even that far to find it...