The Importance of Reading, part 1 of 2
When I was a young girl I loved to read. My earliest memory of being in a chair with a book I couldn’t put down was when I was in third grade. My third grade teacher had a contest for the one who read the most books by the end of the semester. Up to this point in life, reading was something I did just to get by.
My dad was very wise. When he realized how quickly I could devour a book he gave me biographies on missionaries and great Christians to read. I remember my dad challenging me in third grade to read my Bible through in a year. He handed me a Bible reading chart so that I could keep track of my reading. Little did he know that in three months time I would completely finish reading It from cover to cover!
I have to admit that when I got into trouble, many times I was given the duty of doing the dishes for a full week. I’m sure my sister would see this differently, but I think she loved to argue with me to get me in trouble so she could get out of doing the dishes. I would prop my book up in front of me, behind the faucet, and read while I did the dishes. Don’t ask how clean the dishes were; I had to wash many of them a second and third time and then my mom helped my book disappear until I was done.
Many of the books I read in my high school and college years were books I needed to read and focus on for outside reading for my classes. My mom probably doesn’t realize what she taught me with reading, but she made a statement to me when I was sharing something very interesting in a book I read on a missionary wife. She told me to mark in my personal books so that I could remember specific things that helped me or things that I needed to work on. She also encouraged me to do this with my Bible, so doing it in a book held the same concept.
I have books on being a better Christian, wife and mother that I wrote in or highlighted things in so when I pick those books up to thumb through them again, these highlighted areas will catch my attention. This is also a wonderful thing to do for your children’s sake. I can’t tell you how many times as a child I would look through my dad or mom’s Bible and see what they had written. Both of my parents had outlines or thoughts that I have at one time or another transferred to my own Bible because it was thought provoking or something that could help me in my life. If your child or teenager thumbed through your Bible, would they see that the Lord has spoken to you, or is it just a book with no markings? The Bible is our textbook. Learn to dig in It, write in It, memorize It and bookmark important things that you are studying in It.
I think as life goes through different phases, it gets harder to find time to read, but reading is something that each of us needs to work on. Let me share a few thoughts about reading.
God commands us to be a reader. 1 Timothy 4:13 says, “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” You will notice that God commanded Timothy to “…give attendance to reading…” This was not a choice, but this was a command. This command wasn’t just for Timothy, but also it is for us to obey. If you don’t read on a regular basis then you are disobeying God. This is also why you should encourage your children to read so that they will be obedient to God’s command.
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