The Best Book

The Best Book


A few months ago I was given a huge box of magazines. Most were only a few months old, so I diligently filed them away, by title, in the same box, determined to read them "some day".

The problem with having books, however, at least for me, is that they scream to be read. I love to read, and read several hundred books a year. However, magazines don't seem to catch my attention. When I read, I like to get drawn into a plot or a topic, and to delve into that plot or topic, until it is exhausted. Magazines don't do that for me.

Magazines tend to be more surface than depth. They tend to tease with a few facts, and then leave a lot of unanswered questions. Or, they try to tell you a lot about things you don't really care about.

Still, this box was calling out to me. I moved it twice, reorganized it once, and even put it in a different container, in hopes that it would be satisfied to stay quiet for a while longer.

But it didn't. So I made a resolution, if you want to call it that, to read, or at least peruse, three issues per day. I started with a business publication, and worked through about 15 of them. A few interesting stories, like the one about the guy who is trying to market personal jet propulsion packs as an alternative to driving your car to work. Great idea, so long as you live less than nine minutes from work, since that's all the fuel you can carry at a time. My question is: how does he get home? Does someone have to drive fuel to his office for the return trip? Kind of negates the flying to work thing, don't you think?

Then I moved on to magazines about cooking. Out of about 25 magazines, I got maybe 5 recipes and 1 craft idea. Made me glad to not have paid for these subscriptions.

Now I'm in the middle of about 10 books on birds and flowers. A little more interesting, since we are going to be doing some landscaping this year on our property. Still, most of the ideas are not set for our climate and soil, and most definitely not for our budget.

And what does all this have to do with quiet moments alone with God, you might be asking? In reading all these magazines, I realized that I already had one book that gave me all the business ideas I could ever hope to implement -- treat others the way you want to be treated. Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't covet.

I have one book that gives me the true food I need – the Word of God. I have book that tells me what to grow in my life – fruits of the spirit. And it tells me that I will be judged by what I grow, so I must be careful to plant what I want to harvest. I must also be diligent to prune out the dead wood, to plant the seed in fertile ground, and to be watchful for pestilence.

God already gave me everything I need to know in the Bible. And when I spend more time there than in magazines, I will come away with a depth of character that the best book couldn't produce, with a full pantry, a full bank account, and a full heart that no magazine could equal.

God is so good!

Donna