Reading with Style

One of the thoughts dialogging in my mind this morning was the activity of reading. I have observed things about reading that have raised concerns both for others and myself.

One of these is something shared with me by one of my very close friends who tells me that when they read a book they can only read it once. If they try to read it again their mind quickly zones out and they cannot stay focused or receive anything more because their mind insists that it already knows about this and there is nothing more to learn.

This really makes me wonder what is behind this problem. I say problem because I really believe it is a problem if a person cannot learn any more from the same source after reading it just once. I am not putting down this person or criticizing them in any way, but I see this as a symptom of a much deeper belief (actually more likely a lie) that creates a dangerous liability for their growth process. While not wanting to set up myself as a standard against which to measure others, I do look at my own experience and growth to see that at times I have had to push my way past this same kind of mental resistance to “dig deeper” to uncover many very important insights that are missed on a first reading.

I have seen that this person (and they are certainly not unique) can read a book that I have read and yet discover very little of the exciting and stimulating things that I saw in the same writing. While I do not expect everyone else to see the same things I do, when a person cannot hardly see any of the things that seem to be some of the main reasons for the writing I begin to suspect that there are blocks preventing them from seeing what might be more obscure to them or maybe even potentially painful.

In my own life there have been quite a number of books I have read that I really wanted to go back and soak in them more thoroughly so I could absorb much more that I knew was lurking under the surface. Usually I never do in spite of my honest intentions largely due to the beckon of new material waiting to be explored. While this is very typical of the habits of most of us today, I think the drawbacks may be much more serious than we are willing to admit. This is definitely true when it comes to the Bible. If this habit of surface reading is allowed to keep us from looking below the surface and allowing the Holy Spirit to open more truth up in our hearts personally, we will miss out on most of the blessing and intimacy that God has for true followers. This may be one of the main reasons for the shallow, paltry condition of most Christians today.

There is something very important about developing in one's self the character trait of determined effort to push past the resistance of inertia and disciplining the mind to think deeper and broader than what it is comfortable doing. The reasons our minds are so shallow are many, not the least of which is the amount of time we spend being conditioned and manipulated by entertainment media calculated to stimulate our emotions while preventing us from engaging our conscience. This not only uses up most of the time available to us for real learning and heart-growth, but trains our heart to reflect the values of the enemy by constant learning through imitation and example.

Another aspect of intentional deeper learning is how we read. I am not an expert on this subject, but I can look back on my own years of struggle and experience and share the few things I have been learning myself. My own “study” has evolved over the years to be much more effective and satisfying because of some fundamental choices I have made to incorporate some of the things I learned into my study time.

I remember that for many years from my teens on I spent my reading time largely focusing on looking for formulas and facts to bolster my intellect and reinforce my resources for winning arguments. This was the nature of most of those who were my teachers and I pretty much reflected their style and lead. My heart tried many times during those years to be heard and be allowed expression, but my intellect believed that, according to the consensus of the religion I knew at the time, these expressions and emotions were dangerous and needed to be kept under strict control, which really means suppression. So for years I dutifully suppressed my heart, my emotions, and carefully regulated my external expressions to conform to expected external “standards” so I would be seen as growing into perfection.

My reading habits were primarily motivated by a sense of obligation and fear of being lost if I didn't perform this religious duty every morning and evening. I will say that I tried to make a real, conscious connection with God in my prayers, but overall my legalistic context and conditioning prevented me from accepting into the heart most of what was available in the words I was reading. In fact, for most of my life I have to admit that I had no real idea of what the term “heart” meant anyway; it was one of those very baffling and mysterious religious terms that had no connection with real life for me.

A little over ten years ago my spiritual hunger and dissatisfaction became so intense that I remember reading the book Desire of Ages with a different purpose in mind. I was becoming more conscious of my need for a relationship-based experience with God more than an intellectual knowledge of things about God, so I decided to read through this world-renowned presentation of the life of Jesus with a view to listen more with my heart than to simply read the facts and get through the pages.

This brings up another habit that I have used for most of my life as part of my study habits. I do a lot of underlining when I read, but I do it intentionally different than the way my own Dad did it. I used to underline more like he did with a view to discovering the most potent proof statements to reinforce what I wanted to push on others. But over the years my style has changed considerably and I moved from heavy underlining in red and blue ink with rulers and straight-edges to using pencil and underlining in free-hand so I could change it. I also moved from underlining whole sentences or paragraphs to limiting my emphasis to just key words and phrases so it would be much easier to flush out what the author was really trying to convey. I have found this to be very helpful for me to clear up in my mind the focal point of a passage separated from the extra verbiage required by our language surrounding it. Sometimes I have even thought of the silly idea of teaching a class on how to underline more effectively. I have found it very difficult to read nearly any book now without having a pencil nearby. For this reason I hardly ever borrow a book from someone to read, for I know that if it is good enough to read I will be miserable the whole time if I cannot interact with the book using my pencil and my heart.

Along this line as well, the Bible that I now use is very well marked-up and continues to fill up with notations and marks as you might well imagine. A few years ago my personal study dramatically mushroomed into a much more exciting dimension when I took a class in inductive Bible study that totally transformed my personal devotion life. The Bible came alive with an explosion of potential for dynamic interaction with God in a way I had never dreamed possible. I began spontaneous journaling about what I was discovering and realized that often the insights would begin to flow like a fountain only after I had picked up my pencil and began to write what was in my mind and heart. It seemed like when I opened the faucet God would suddenly begin to speak to my heart and I could hardly keep up trying to write it all down. Often my hand would begin to cramp from so much writing but I didn't want to stop because it was so much – well dare I put it this way – fun. Maybe heart-satisfying would be a more accurate description of what I was feeling. My heart was beginning to be released again and new life was beginning to flow into it. I could relate to David when he wrote, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God.” (Psalms 42:1)

If a person finds it difficult to read the same thing more than once, then receiving nourishment from the Bible is a great risk as well. I think this liability is another scheme of the enemy to steal our salvation from us and depend on his cheap imitations for soul nourishment like trying to live off of junk-food simply because is tastes better to our perverted appetite. I believe we need to encourage each other to resist the urges to skim the surface and value covering “territory” as we read in favor of submerging ourselves in inspired writings (and this includes many authors I believe) forcing ourselves to read more slowly and allow our heart to listen more than our mind. This is a practice that does not come easy at first but has immense payoff in the results of maturity and stability in our growth experience.

Well, I have again spent too much time writing my thoughts and not rushing out the door to earn a living. But I also am willing to repeatedly challenge my priorities and reevaluate what is really important every day. But in this case I will leave further sharing for another day.