“The vacations at our Maine cabin are memorable for the fish we caught, the lobsters we ate, the crackling fire, the smell of wet clothes drying-and the delicious books we devoured.”
We were married twenty years ago. Brought to our relationship was a love for books; and while we were getting to know each other, we found our lives had been shaped by some of the same books. Many of these fall into the category of basic tools for Christian living-books that gave us direction which has stayed with us since we were college students.
One of them is Quiet Time (InterVarsity Press). The title has become a standard term for personal devotions. As young believers, this book revoluliolwized our lives, because we learned both the importance and the technique of daily Bible reading and prayer. We discovered the rather prosaic truth that being able to meet God in the morning meant disciplining ourselves to get to bed at a reasonable hour the night before. It was new to us that God awaits us, is eager to meet us. The object of prayer, we learned, is God’s glory, God himself, not our feelings or experiences.
Another foundational book that influenced us was Sacrifice by Howard Guinness (InterVarsity Press). The theme is simple and basic: One doesn’t get anywhere in the Christian life without putting all of life under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
A similar book, yet one more steeped in practical experience, is Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret by Howard and Mary Taylor (Moody Press).
While some readers have stumbled trying to emulate this pioneer missionary’s spiritual life, countless others have recognized his struggle as their own. The secret comes right out of John 7. Believing God, or faith, is a moment-by-moment thirsting and drinking.
Reinforcing the direction we had taken from these books was another: The Threefold Secret of the Holy Spirit by James H. McConkey (Back to the Bible, Lincoln, Nebraska). McConkey’s book not only straightened out our biblical understanding and walk with the Holy Spirit, it’s also been one of the basic tools we’ve passed on to others in our subsequent counseling ministries as student workers and then in the pastorate.
During our engagement we read to each other from books we thought could help us in our marriage. Of the making of marriage manuals there is no end. The one that influenced us most is Theodore Bovet’s A Handbook to Marriage (Doubleday). You won’t find Bovet at the top of your Christian best-seller list, but that should not deter couples from digging into this book. Bovet says marriage requires w two persons willing to work for the sake of their relationship. As we do that, we find that marriage is also one of God’s ways to cause us to grow spiritually. Marriage is not a power struggle, but a husband and wife finding their fulfillment in helping one another and caring for the other’s happiness.
We want to briefly mention some books that have helped us grow both with our family and in our speaking and writing ministries. First, two basic books by Haim Ginnot: Between Parent and Child (Macmillan) and Between Parent and Teen-ager (Avon Books). We plunged into these out of sheer necessity, found what worked for us, and continued to refer to them again and again. Ginott’s work has been well validated, theoretically and practically.
The principles in James Dobson’s book Hide or Seek (Revell) opened new areas of thought, discussion, and usefulness for us.. We have seen many families remarkably changed by this book. Dobson taught us the importance of building a child’s self-esteem. What parents do, positively and negatively, teaches a child his worth. His book also gave us insights into our own self-understanding and self-esteem
In a slightly different direction, but equally important, was H. Norman Wright’s communication: Key to Your Marriage (Regal Books). His most significant contribution to our marriage and ministry was the teaching of communication skills. He also deals competently with the biblical approach to anger and how to handle conflict in marriage.
Not all of our reading together has been ministry-oriented. In fact, we find the freshness of ministry in technical areas depends on the infusion of ideas and illustrations from other sources.
In the early years of our family, we spent enjoyable times reading a good deal of C. S. Lewis. Mere Christianity (Macmillan) helped us with Christian apologetics when we were student workers, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Macmillan) helped us most in reading aloud with our children. To that classic we would have to add all the rest of Lewis’ so-called children’s books, which enraptured us as adults as well, and taught us many valuable theological insights.
Just to cite influential books we have read together is to leave you dangling, because we know the perennial question is: How did you do it, considering jobs, children, church activities, and all the rest? Our simplest answer is that we did it because we liked it, it was fun, and it was profitable. Beyond the obvious benefit of drawing us together, thinking and searching together for insights and ideas proved invaluable to our growth. Reading together forced communication, and that seems to be the most important reason for building time for reading into our schedules.
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