A Book I'm Reading. Or, A Book That's Reading Me

Is it a bad idea to write a book review, recommending it to others when you've only read the first 45 pages? I know you aren't supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but can you judge it by it's first three chapters?

I read non-fiction books the same way I do everything else. Completely distracted. I'm all over the place. I don't jump ahead mind you, (that would be breaking the rules) but I read a little, put it down. Then I pick it up a week later and read three pages before climbing into bed. Then I put it down. Then I take it with me to pick the kids up from school and I read two more pages. This works well enough with reading, not so much with laundry and cooking supper.

Right now I'm "reading" a book that kept popping up on my radar everywhere I looked. I figured it was a sign, so I ordered it. "Age of Opportunity" by Paul David Tripp. A biblical guide to parenting teens. Let me just say this. It's kickin' my tail. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm only on chapter three and I feel like I could already go back and re-read those first three chapters. I highlight as I read and I could probably just highlight every single word.


What I've read so far applies to all of parenting, not just teens. Before he addresses the kids, he has the reader, the parent, take a look at their own heart and their own lives. Here are some of the things that jumped off the page at me.

My mother put it this way. "There is nothing that comes out of a drunk that was not in there in the beginning." These years are hard for us because they rip back the curtain and expose us. This is why trials are so difficult, yet so useful in God's hands. We don't radically change in a moment of trial. No, trials expose what we have always been. Trials bare things to which we would have otherwise been blind. So, too, the teen years expose our self-righteousness, our impatience, our unforgiving spirit, our lack of servant love, the weakness of our faith, and our craving for comfort and ease.

Holy cannoli. Give me a minute to catch my breath. That one socked me right in the gut. But the author doesn't relent, just a few pages later he writes this.

We tend to approach parenting with a sense of ownership, that these are our children and their obedience is our right.

We begin to look at our children as our trophies rather than God's creatures.

When they fail to live up to our expectations, we find ourselves not grieving for them and fighting for them, but angry at them, fighting against them, and, in fact, grieving for ourselves and our loss.

So there it is, a teaser of sorts.

I've had to take inventory of my own heart towards my kids, my parenting, and my view of hardship. It's never pretty or easy to look inside. But oh the joy when we can line ourselves up with God and the way He intended things to be. Comfort, peace, and freedom.

We'll see what the next three chapters hold and hopefully my highlighter can live up to the challenge. I'll report back with more thoughts when I finish reading the book...hopefully by the end of 2010?

Marinating. I'm not reading, I'm marinating.