A Month’s Adventures for National Book Lover’s Day

Exactly one month ago on July 9, I had a second knee replacement surgery. In the following  days, I haven’t been far from my house physically, but I have had some wonderful adventures reading books. Today, August 9, in honor of National Book Lover’s Day, here are some adventures you might want to take also.

I witnessed the catastrophic consequences of taking many small shortcuts and steps of untruth and denial when I read Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster. I think the biggest take away from this story was the danger of setting unrealistic deadlines, especially in a bureaucracy filled with fear and jealousy.

I was reminded again of the eternal consequences of insisting on one’s own way by reading C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce.

I discovered that Phillip Keller first learned to appreciate the nuances of shepherding by watching the Maasai in Kenya were his parents were missionaries when I reread A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm, and was humbled to recognize I had missed the gift of this distant culture when I first read this book years ago.

I followed David Sitton on his great missionary adventures in Reckless Abandon and was convicted again about what it means to count the cost.

I trekked with David Platt through the mountains of Nepal and wept with him at the end of seven days when his heart broke over the desperate spiritual and physical condition of the villagers he met.  Something Needs to Change is his journal of this life altering trip that has fueled the fire of missions in his soul. (I received a pre-release copy; the book releases Sept. 17.

I discovered a wonderful book by Richard Bewes, rector of All Souls Church, London (1983-2004). All Saints was John Stott’s church, and Richard was his friend. Under the Thorn Tree: When Revival Comes is a wide-ranging and deeply challenging book that looks at aspects of the moving of the Holy Spirit in Africa and around the world.