why I read and how I live

In You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen Kelly writes to Joe Fox: “So much of what I see reminds me of things I read in a book, when… shouldn’t it be the other way around?”  Reading can be a very passive thing.  Many use it as a form of escape… They aren’t truly living so they try to do so by living vicariously through books or maybe movies or tv shows.  For others these things are inspiration and motivation - an amazing way to learn from what others have experienced (if you’re reading and watching the right things). 

I love to read not because it’s an escape but because I’m an experiential and observational learner.  I learn by doing and by watching.  Reading is a way I watch.  From the stories of another’s experience I gain wisdom.  When I know that a person has lived what these books contain I learn.  When I read a book or hear a story from someone who has come to know and live as Jesus - the living Word - taught and modeled for us, hearing their stories spurs me on to live as He called us out to…

Luke lived with Jesus.  He experienced it and wrote it down for us to observe.  He told us these words that Jesus said and showed us how Jesus lived it. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”  What happens when we take that seriously?  What happens if we choose to live it?  What if we choose not to be passive readers… not to let the things we see simply remind us of things we read or heard in a sermon… ?

I’m in a years long process of learning to live it and I can tell you that the more I live it the more I … come ALIVE! And amazing, beautiful things occur!

So, let’s live………………………………………. losing our lives for His sake, to save them and let’s share our experiences along the way so that we can learn from each other through observation.