Read Your Life Around
“Make every effort to add to your faith… knowledge.” 2 Peter 1:5
The very skill that would score in the top ten “taken for granted” is the very skill that, if consistently applied, can change your life more than any other.
It’s the simple skill of deliberate and regular optical exposure to paper-based or electronic-based text for the purpose of intellectual enhancement with a view toward impacting one’s soul and spirit.
It’s also commonly referred to as “reading.”
The power of reading is built in. When you read a book, you get the best of the author’s mind on the subject. You get the voice of an expert at your own digestible pace — in print!
So, when you read, you are actually drinking from the distilled knowledge of a focused, educated mind. You get to take it all in and at your own preferred speed (and speed can be radically adjusted; see article below).
No wonder books have been called “thinking frozen in time.” If you miss something, the author doesn’t mind repeating it for you. Just re-read that line until it’s part of your thinking.
You can even highlight it and review it whenever you wish, and its no inconvenience whatsoever to the author! You can’t beat it!
This perpetual opportunity is neglected at an alarming degree by most. Get this: 70% of Americans read less than one book a year (as if it’s some insurmountable task).
If you just simply read at the average speed for just fifteen minutes a day, you will complete about one book per month. That’s twelve books per year.
Now don’t you think that would change your life?
Think about it… just reading one book per year puts you in the top thirty percent of Americans! Reading one book per month will put you at the head of the pack in just about any arena of your world (assuming well-chosen, non-fiction).
Ask yourself an honest question: Would not consuming twelve books per year drastically impact your life if those books were on topics along the lines of…
• Improving relationships
• Starting a home business
• Good diet & nutrition
• Prayer and Bible study
• Discovering and living your purpose
• Discerning God’s will
• Saving & Investing
• Setting and achieving goals
• Child training
• And more! Your choice!
Someone said, “Ten years from now you will be the same person you are now except for the friends you have and the books you read.” Pretty much nails it.
Books are to personal growth what seeds are to a farmer. You cannot do it without them.
Mere faith doesn’t guarantee growth. Add to that faith knowledge, and your life can be in a constant and rapid growth pattern… all from spending less than 5% of your average day in a sound, mind-informing, life-transforming volume.
“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” — Mark Twain
