My Crazy Journey: Wow That’s A Lot of Reading!

I am not the outdoorsy type. I generally think the only time you should go outside is if you’re leaving one inside to go to another inside. I don’t like nature very much, I am not fond of animals, and I can’t stand the heat or the cold. Needless to say, then, that I don’t like camping, fishing, hiking, horse back riding, or gardening (among a host of other outdoor hobbies). I do have hobbies, but they mainly allow me the freedom to stay indoors. My all time favorite hobby is reading, but it was not always this way.

As I started college I can recall having read a whopping total of three books. That is counting, too, the books that I was supposed to read for school. I just wasn’t into reading, in fact I wasn’t into studying, or generally thinking either. I was kind of a slacker, fairly lazy, and pretty much absorbed with television, movies, and theater. It was in college, my sophomore year, that all of this began to change. I mentioned how my mentor got me thinking, processing, studying, and reading, but it was when I started purchasing books myself that I knew something had changed. I began a pattern during college of reading 50 books a year, and that has stuck with me. I love to read.

When I started Seminary I was forced to read even more, even harder more detailed books. My very first class at Southern was a week long and I had to read three books, one alone was over 800 pages. “Wow,” I thought, “that’s a lot of reading.” I had one week to read over 1,000 pages of deep theological content. I can recall pacing around in my apartment living room at 2 a.m. reading (because if I sat down I would fall asleep).  It amazes me not simply that I did this, anyone can do it really…but rather it amazes me that I wanted to do it and was excited to do it. Reading, thinking, and seeking understanding became an even more developed passion of mine in seminary. When I graduated it was with a great debt of thanks to God for all that Hi servants at Southern had taught me, not simply in content but in developing my desire to learn.

It is a marvel of the grace of God in my life. No one had ever sat down and helped me learn how to think and process information logically, no one ever explained how to critically read. I was neither a fan of hard mental thought, nor disciplined enough to attempt it. And yet…here God has brought me. Maybe I am not any smarter, maybe my logic is still faulty…but my passion for learning, reading, and processing has grown in leaps and bounds. And particularly my desire to grow in my depth of understanding of God and the things of God has developed in outstanding measure. God continues to do crazy things in my life, in this case he brought me from lazy passive learner to disciplined thinker!