You Want Me to do WHAT?

Photo by Trish Hamme

Several years ago I decided I wanted to read more books.  I had heard of people who would read four books a month, some who would read one book a week, and still others who would read a book a day.  Well, I set out to read four books a month.  I contacted my good friend, Randy Poe, and asked him how he selected his books each month.  He told me he would read one inspirational book a month, one biography /history a month, one business/leadership/self-help a month, and one fun book a month.  For years now I have followed his plan and have not really felt pushed to increase this ready schedule.  Quite frankly, I had forgotten about those individuals who would read a book a day.

Well just before 2016 started I listened to a leadership training by Nelson Searcy in which he shared that a book a day was his annual reading goal.  He also shared he had not yet reached that goal, but he is reading close to or at 300 books per year.  All of a sudden my forty-eight books seemed rather pale in comparison.  I am not ready to jump on Searcy’s goal yet, but I did feel compelled to increase my reading goal for 2016 to five books a month.  If I am able to maintain this reading speed, then I will have increased my annual book reading by twelve books.  We are now, for all particle purposes, two months completed for this calendar year and I am pleased to tell you I am on track.  In fact, I am a little ahead of schedule.

I have not written this blog to pat myself on the back.  I have written it because when I heard Searcy give the challenge to read more books it inspired me.  I am praying this blog post does the same for you.  Let’s say last year you read two books.  Could you read four or five books this year?  If you had read ten books, could you read fifteen or twenty this year?  My hope is you will be intentional about setting a reading goal each year and then strive to reach that goal.

Most of you know this about me already, but I am a bit retentive about some things.  My reading plan is no different.  I literally select my five books in advance of the next month and count up all of those pages.  I then divide that number by the number of days in that month and that tells me how many pages I need to read each day.  I then use two book marks.  The first book mark tells me where I am in the book.  The second book mark tells me where I need to get to at the end of that day.  When I reach that end page for that day, that second book mark becomes my first and I count out the pages for the next day and place the previous first book mark in that spot.  This plan is not rocket science, but it is the plan I use.

The reason I want you to read more is because I know that leaders are readers.  The more we read, the more we grow.  The more we grow, the bigger our influence is on other people.  The more we influence people, the greater opportunities we are often given to serve others.  The better we serve others, the more we are able to point people to the Lord.  The more we point people to the Lord, the more glory He receives and at the end of the day, that is what I desire most.  I desire to see God brought more glory.  So, you could say, I have a theology of reading because I want God glorified.

Do you have a reading plan?  If you do, or if you have a question you would like to ask me, just write it below in the comments section of this blog.  We would love to hear from you.  Also, if you found this post helpful, would you please retweet it or share it on Facebook?  I would appreciate your support and thank you.