Awakening To The Wonderful World of Books

I have always been a great lover of books. I enjoy reading, but I am not particularly good at it. No, I do not have literacy issues. I can read, but I don't read non-fiction regularly unless I have to. I find this strange because in times of "force-fed reading" (such as educational and occupational requirements, etc.) I usually love it. I am often challenged, refreshed, inspired, and otherwise satisfied with being fed spiritually and mentally. I just find that I do not regularly crack a non-fiction book and finish it with the same ravenous reading in which I attack a novel.

A few months ago I decided that I needed to develop this discipline of reading for my own personal and professional growth. The results have been somewhat mixed. In spurts and starts, I have read with a proficiency that falls somewhere in the middle of the Canadian Women's hockey team's total dominance and the men's team's utter malaise. In other words, I am not completely hopeless but I am not exactly a world-beater yet in terms of reading.

I decided to start things off with an author whose fiction I really enjoy. Ted Dekker is an amazing suspense/thriller/action novelist writing from a Christian worldview with a clear message of hope and faith in his work. So when I discovered his first foray into non-fiction, I picked it up. In fact - this book inspired the title of this blog, the hope of His calling. In reading it, you quickly see signs of a fiction writer's first non-fiction work manifested in 2 clear elements. First, it is very much "story-centric". Dekker loves to tell a story and often does to get his point across. The other element is that because of the "story-centric" nature, the book is more inspiration than information.

The sub-title "awakening a passion for heaven on earth" really states the purpose of the book succinctly, and the author does a fairly good job of achieving his stated purpose. Dekker was preaching to the choir though as I really can't wait for heaven. Essentially, the message is for many of us (me included sometimes) who just get so comfortable living our life here that we forget we are not here for here. We are here for heaven!

One aspect that Dekker deals with exceptionally well is the whole concept of the "wrongness" of pleasure. Many believers are wrongfully taught or mistakenly think that pleasure is bad. Ever hear someone say, "if it feels good, it must be a sin". So not true. Here is a quote from the book, "While the children of our culture play noisily about the yard and swim in so many pleasures and eat from lavish spreads, we often feel like the ugly stepchild, confined to our closets, starved of the pleasures that call to us."(p.165) He goes on to discuss how we are really meant to enjoy the pleasures the creator has made for us, but sinful nature distorts and perverts pleasure to the point of turning it to sin. Then on p.167 Dekker returns our focus to eternity, "When one is enamored with the bliss that actually awaits, he actually finds more pleasure here on earth, not less."

I have run into some believers who are uncertain of heaven, even scared because of the unknown or dreading it because of what they think they know. This book is a great start for those who have misconceptions of eternity. Randy Alcorn (who wrote the forward for this book) also has great stuff on the topic of eternity.

This was a good book, inspiring a passion for eternity and instilling a desire to enjoy the "foretastes" in the meantime while serving the One who provides it all. Check out Dekker's site on the link above (click on highlighted name) for more info on the author and his work. Very good stuff.

Well, that was my first - and I've read three others since, so I am improving! I'll have another review soon. In the meantime, I would recommend you pick up this book whether you need to be awakened from a slumber, or inspired to continue on in the journey to our eternal destination. And then the fun begins.