“Jesus left footprints. People saw him and talked about it. “J.R.R. Tolkien

TEN BOOKS THAT CONTINUE TO SHAPE MY LIFE

 “If one has to choose between reading the new books and reading the old, one must choose the old: not because they are necessarily better but because they contain precisely those truths of which our own age is neglectful . . . We serve One who said, ‘Heaven and Earth shall move with the times, but my words shall not move with the times.’”  C.S. Lewis, “Christian Apologetics” in Essay Collection and other Short Pieces (London: Harper Collins, 2000), p. 14

1. The Bible

Who wrote the Bible? Chosen men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. (“All Scripture is God breathed.” If this seems impossible, see #8 (Tim Keller). This is an image of the vintage New Testament I  read for the first time in 1972. It had now famous black line drawings. 

 

2. Robert Boyd Munger. “My Heart Christ’s Home.”  (you can download this pdf.  My-Heart-Christs-Home (1)

A few weeks after I began following Jesus, “Frog Sullivan” shared this story at an Easter retreat at Laity Lodge in Texas’ Frio Canyon. More than ten million readers have enjoyed Robert Boyd Munger’s spiritually challenging meditation on Christian discipleship. Imagining what it would be like to have Jesus come to the home of our hearts, Munger moves room by room considering what Christ desires for us.

3.  C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia.  http://www.amazon.com/The-Chronicles-Narnia-Boxed-Set/dp/0064471195

A few months after I came to faith in Christ, and before joining the “work crew” at Laity Lodge Youth Camps, I read this fantasy series as an assignment. Twenty years later we read them to our three children. My goal is to read all thirty-three of his books, and his essays, before we meet in Heaven.

4. Henri Nouwen. Turn My Mourning Into Dancing: Help for Hard Times. http://www.amazon.com/Turn-My-Mourning-into-Dancing/dp/0849945097

This book was published in 2004, from writings found after Nouwen died. I heard about it from a book review at a women’s retreat–my friend said, “read it now before you’re going through a hard time.” Good advice! First I learned how to enter in to another person’s suffering (the root meaning of “compassion” means suffer with). Second, I went through a really hard time and was upheld by its message.

In times of suffering simplistic answers ring empty and hollow. But Henri Nouwen, beloved spiritual thinker and author, offered real comfort in the concrete truth of God’s constancy. Nouwen suggested that by greeting life’s pains with something other than despair, we can find surprising joy in our suffering. The way through suffering is not in denial, but rather in living fully in the midst of the trials life brings our way.

5. Rose Marie Miller. From Fear to Freedom: Living as Sons and Daughters of God  http://www.amazon.com/From-Fear-Freedom-Living-Daughters/dp/0877882592

First edition published in 2000: very instrumental in the development of my theology of grace, rather than moralism, where I learned that “God is (not) obligated to tilt the universe in my favor.”  Scotty Smith wrote, “Every once in a while a book comes along which distills and delivers the truths of the Bible with profound simplicity and disruptive integrity. From Fear to Freedom is just such a volume. Rose Marie writes as both a skilled teacher of the Scriptures and a living epistle of God’s grace. Her book is a dangerous collection of insights into the liberating power of God’s love. Like a Trojan Horse, this seemingly harmless grandmother offers stories calculated to bring freedom to prisoners (like me) of unbelief, legalism and self-pity. Read with care, but by all means read!” 

6. Richard J. Foster. Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home. 
http://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Finding-Hearts-True-Home/dp/0060628464

I discovered this book sometime after it’s first edition in 2006, and it radically changed my notions about prayer!  Foster offers a warm, compelling, and sensitive primer on prayer, helping us to understand, experience, and practice it in its many forms-from the simple prayer of beginning again to unceasing prayer. He clarifies the prayer process, answers common misconceptions, and shows the way into prayers of contemplation, healing, blessing, forgiveness, and rest. (He also wrote a best-seller called Celebration of Discipline.)

7. John Piper. God is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself.  http://www.amazon.com/God-Is-Gospel-Meditations-Himself/dp/1433520494

People like to name one or more of the 10,000 blessings about following Jesus, but frequently they forget to tell you the #1 benefit: YOU GET GOD! This book is a plea that God himself, as revealed most clearly and fully in Jesus’s death and resurrection, be seen and enjoyed as the final and greatest gift of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus and his many precious blessings are not ultimately what makes the good news good, but means of seeing and savoring the Savior himself. Forgiveness is good because it opens the way to enjoying God himself. Justification is good because it wins access to the presence and pleasure of God himself. Eternal life is good because it becomes the everlasting enjoyment of Jesus.’

8. Tim Keller. The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith.  http://www.amazon.com/The-Prodigal-God-Timothy-Keller/dp/1594484023

This was another landmark book that has challenged me to ask, “Have I become the older brother?” Keller takes his trademark intellectual approach to understanding Christianity and uses the parable of the Prodigal Son to reveal an unexpected message of hope and salvation. Within that parable, Jesus reveals God’s prodigal grace toward both the irreligious and the moralistic. This book will challenge both the devout and skeptics to see Christianity in a whole new way. Skeptical? Read his jarring book, A Reason for God.

9. John Owen. Communion with God [this book is not for sissys–abridged but still very rich] http://www.amazon.com/The-Glory-Christ-Puritan-Paperbacks/dp/0851516610

Okay, I admit it. There’s nothing like reading old dead guys from the 1600s. Love John Owen’s writings, but this is the very best if you only read one in your lifetime–the best teaching on life with the Holy Spirit! Owen believed that communion with God lies at the heart of the Christian life. With Paul he recognized that through the Son we have access by the Spirit to the Father. And he never lost the sense of amazement expressed by John: ‘Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ’. It was written in a day, like our own, when the doctrine of the Trinity was under attack and the Christian faith was being reduced either to rationalism on the one hand or mysticism on the other. His exposition shows that nothing is more vital to spiritual well-being than a practical knowledge of what this doctrine means.

10. Madeleine L’Engle. Walking On Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.  http://www.amazon.com/Walking-Water-Reflections-Wheaton-Literary/dp/087788918X

I first read L’Engle’s works of fiction, starting with A Wrinkle in Time.  My continuing goal is to read all of her works, fiction and non-fiction, before I meet her and we go looking for “Jack” Lewis.  

Serendipitous Extras

Tim Keller on Stories (Bellhaven University, 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPcLie0HDXE

J.R.R. Tolkien “On Fairy Stories” (download pdf below)
fairystories-tolkien