Faith

The Journey in Pages

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In early 2025, I shared a quick rundown of the books I read in 2024, along with a summary of what I’d read in 2023. It was fun to write, and it gave me a small sense of accomplishment. I was hoping that anyone who read it would find some inspiration to dive into some great reads themselves. A few months later, during a Men’s Bible study, one of our group members shared his own reading adventures, which were humbling to say the last. He mentioned that he felt some of it was a waste of time, like he was just trying to brag about reading so many books. It seemed to him like it was a way to measure his intelligence or worth.

In 2025, I read a couple of books, or maybe sixty-seven, depending on how you count them. That’s because 2025 was a year I really focused on Bible study, almost to the exclusion of all of my other non-professional reading.  I managed to squeeze in a science fiction novella, Livesuit (you can skip it, it wasn’t brilliant) and I also read a chapter of The Weight of Glory by CS Lewis and some poetry by Rudyard Kipling. But mostly, I read the Bible.  All of it. I’ve done this before, several times. I think this was my second time in the Bible in a Year program, a podcast by a Catholic ministry associated with Ascension Press. Plus, I read a third of the Bible again through SOAP (I’m two years into the three-year SOAP program), which is sponsored by my church.

(I also read The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard in 2025)

Why would I dedicate so much time to reading the Bible more than once?  Perhaps the best answer is another question: Have you ever read the same book more than once? Maybe it’s a classic or your favorite novel. Or have you listened to the same song, watched the same movie, or reruns of your favorite show? If so, why? Do you discover something new each time you read, listen, or watch? Is it just comforting and enjoyable? I could easily say the same about my Bible study and reading time.

By way of example this is the first year my wife and I engaged in the practice of making a list of familiar Christmas movies and shows and intentionally watching at least one each week as we approach Christmas.  They’re familiar, comforting, and enjoyable, and I always find something new in one of them that I didn’t notice before.  That list includes A Charlie Brown Christmas, Home Alone, Lost in New York, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Christmas Carol, and It’s a Wonderful Life, among others.  

I’ve got a selection of books to dive into this year, of course.  I’m planning to revisit “Resilient” and the accompanying audio program by John Eldgredge and the Wild at Heart ministry. I have a few Patrick O’Brian novels left to get to (I’ve done five of the twenty he completed).  I’m also looking forward  to The Language of Science and Faith by Francis Collins and Karl Giberson. If those names don’t ring a bell, Dr. Collins (MD, Phd) was the leader of the Human Genome Project and a director of the National Institutes of Health.  Dr. Giberson has a Phd in physics as well as BS degrees in philosophy and math (there’s a combination of studies!). I’m not expecting that one to be light reading, but I’m confident it’ll be a worthwhile investment of time.  I’m also planning to finish reading The Weight of Glory.  If you’re not familiar with CS Lewis from The Chonicles of Narnia, you could start there.  (My favorite Lewis book so far is Mere Christianity, which I would recommend to anyone.)    

I also follow two podcasts regularly; Security Now with Steve Gibson and Wild at Heart with John Eldredge, and a few others that I listen to on a less regular basis.  This probably takes up another 4-6 hours of my week when I can find the time. Work and home life tend naturally to be the priority, but I still strive to feed my head. 

Am I bragging? Hardly. I’m not exactly an “educated” person as conventionally defined. I graduated high school with a GPA that would best be described as “marginal.” I’ve occasionally attended college, but I’ve ended up with more incomplete classes than completed ones because of life’s demands and a tendency to procrastinate. But I still have a strong desire to learn and I hope this essay encourages you to engage with what feeds your faith and intellect.

I pray you are blessed and that you find your own rhythm of reading, writing, learning, praying, and loving.  

Perspective

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As I prepared to write this, I asked my new friend, ChatGPT, to give me the definition of ‘Perspective’. I got three answers (the 4o model seems more verbose than it’s predecessors) and this was one of them:

Mental Viewpoint:
Perspective is a particular attitude or way of thinking about something, often shaped by experience, culture, or context. For example, “From her perspective, the decision made sense.”

Then I asked for an image that represented the same. I’m not sure I completely understand the AI perspective on ‘Perspective’, but it is an interesting image.

Not unlike AI though, our minds and spirits (the part of us that lives in the earth suit of our bodies) is programmed, intentionally or otherwise. Part of the definition of ‘Perspective’ that says we are shaped by our culture and context. I would absolutely agree with that. Much of who I am as a person was shaped by my family and other life experiences. But what I didn’t figure out until much later in life was that you can intentionally shape your own perspective by curating your life. By this I mean by intentionally choosing things like:

  • Your daily practices and habits
  • Your friend group
  • Your work cadence and approach
  • Your social media and news feeds (or choosing not to have any)
  • How you treat other people
  • Your sense of gratitude

The great news is that all or at least most of this stuff is under your control. You just have to take that control. You may live in difficult circumstances, but that doesn’t have to mean that you are miserable. I have been acquainted with wealthy people, with every material comfort and blessing you could want, who are still deeply unhappy. I also have met children in the hills of Mexico, living in shacks without running water, who still play and laugh and enjoy their lives. Parking up in a yacht basin in the Caribbean won’t automatically make you happy, and waking up in an impoverished pueblo in Mexico won’t automatically make you weep.

For an even more stark example; the psychiatrist Victor Frankl was a prisoner in a concentration camp during WWII, living in the most appalling situation you can probably imagine. In the midst of this horror, Frankl concluded that that the primary human drive is not pleasure or power, but the pursuit of meaning. I visited the remains of the concentration camp at Dachau once. The still-palpable sense of darkness and heaviness is on that place, which the Germans have partially preserved as a stark reminder of that awful time in their history. Most of the barracks buildings are gone, and there is a beautiful memorial, but it’s still stark and foreboding. How could Frankl find that search for meaning when he faced this?

I would submit that he was able to do this through his perspective, or his control of it. To learn more, read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’.

Another inspirational person from this time is Corrie Ten Boom. She was a Dutch watchmaker who helped Jewish people escape the holocaust before she and her family were swept up by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. She relied on her deep Christian faith to provide her perspective and sustain her through her ordeal. This is the approach I seek to rely on today to inform my perspective and guide me through my life. Read more about Corrie Ten Boom in her book ‘The Hiding Place’.

Memorial at Dachau – Photo by Author

No two of us has the exact same perspective, based on our life experience and context. We don’t get to choose where we come from. But we can control our perspective and outlook and how we choose to see and engage with the future. Having faith or a relationship with God, following positive practices, and choosing our responses can change everything. The good news is that the choice is in our hands and costs us nothing but focus and being intentional.