Well, I suppose the popularized vernacular is "You are what you eat," but there is an element of truthfulness to my updated iteration of this well known idiom.
Tonight, my wife initiated several rounds of questions for my family and I to discuss as we ate dinner together (one of my favorite times to BE with my family). Most nights, we sit around trying to coerce my almost five year old son to eat or sit in his chair or stop playing with his toys. But tonight was different. After a few rounds of questions like, "What is the best and worst thing about your height?" to "How comfortable are you with uncertainty?" we landed on a question that made me dig deep.
"What are some books that have influenced your life?"
Jonah, my soon-to-be five year old boy, said very matter-of-factly, "Blue's clues. It makes my brain grow bigger and makes me smarter."
Fair enough.
Lisa, my bride, responded with a few goodies of her own-- The Bible, Made to Crave, and Captivating.
Then, it was my turn. After listening to my family, I paused before I began by assessing a quick inventory of my heart then I listed to following (in no particular order) as the most influential books that I could think of off the top of my head:
The Bible
Forgotten God
Wild at Heart
Velvet Elvis
More Than A Carpenter
Blue Like Jazz
The Barbarian Way (also called Unleashed)
Chasing Daylight
Ruthless Trust
A Glimpse of Jesus
I Once Was Lost
Questioning Evangelism
The Lord of The Rings
The Chronicles of Narnia
I told my son that all of these books (and a few others that I didn't name) have been very influential in shaping who I am today but none as powerfully as The Scriptures (The Bible).
What books have influenced you?