A few weeks ago at the Blue Ridge conference, Steve Laube gave a keynote speech during which he asked, “Except the Bible, what book changed your life?”
More than one book changed my life, but the first one that popped into my mind was Looking Out for Number One by Robert J. Ringer.
Despite the ruthless title, the content is practical. The message isn’t, “Step on anyone and everyone to get to the top.” Rather, the author, offers tips to help readers cope with the world, and how to get along with others while maintaining self-respect. I read this as a teenager, and I won’t reread it for this blog post. Instead, I’ll cite from memory a key point that’s kept me going throughout life:
There is one to a box. Don’t get married so that you won’t die alone. Because you will die alone. At the end of my life, I will face God alone. My husband won’t be with me as an advocate. I won’t get into Heaven because my grandfather was a church deacon, or because my grandmother served on the altar guild. I’m okay with this. I am an independent person despite my deep ties to others. As a result of pondering this point, I am not in the habit of placing blame on others, and I have always taken responsibility for my actions.
As promised, I wrote this blog post from memory. But out of the thousands of books I own, I was able to locate my copy of “Looking Out for Number One” in fewer than thirty seconds. I just might read it again.
Your turn:
What book changed your life? When did you read it?
Why did this book change your life?
I Love Change, Especially For Someone Else
I’m usually a lurker, but this post invited me to read the comments. As a child, I attended a one-room country school in Nebraska. I devoured the antique books shelved in that room. The Pollyanna series by Eleanor H. Porter impacted my attitude toward life. Some of you may remember the movie starring Jane Wyman and Hayley Mills, with Agnes Moorehead playing a pivotal part. (I found prisms from an old chandelier and strung them so the sunlight hit them for my children and grandchildren.) Pollyanna’s optimism and will to look for the good in anything that touched her life challenged me to do the same.
The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas. I read it while in High School. I’d gone to Sunday School all my life and been confirmed the previous year, but that book made Christianity real to me for the first time.
God’s Creative Power by Charles Capps – because in the back he give several “Pre-Scriptures” to say / confess over our lives. started that nearly 30 years ago and it has transformed me!! Romans 12:2
The Papa Prayer by Larry Crabb. If you had asked me about my prayer life before reading the book I would have said, “It is personal, consistent, and real.”
After reading the book my whole walk with the Father, Papa, changed. Ask me now and I will tell you my prayer life is intimate; I have learned to listen and there is sometimes even laughter in this personal journey with the Master.
I must comment too on Lewis’ Problem With Pain. What a privilege to find such a book to read and discuss with my mother just before she passed away. It astounded me, this argument Lewis presents where pain itself proves the Presence of our God.
I really want to list others…because there seems to be a powerful book for every twist along lif’e journey.
I agree Peretti’s books were influential. However, in a strange way The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway was powerful to me. It proved dialogue can pretty much carry a great novel. While that book was of course secular and in now way Christian I’d think the same principle applies to most genres.
Could I toss in a TV show that currently is changing me? It’s “This Is Us”, and my wife says that through it I’m learning that the world is not only made up of people like me, dudes who never fully returned from that last deployment. Though Barbara is perfectly capable of tongue-in-cheek humour, she was quite serious.
However, questions remain:
– Why are none of the characters ever armed?
– Why are there no Pit Bulls lounging on the sofas?
– Most important…why do none of the characters go to church?
Brene Brown’s DARING GREATLY was a great inspiration to me while I was seeking the courage I needed to share my manuscript. I recommend it to everyone reading this blog!
A.W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy had the most memorable impact on my life. My husband gave it to me in the months before out marriage. I was a new RN, working the night shift in a hospital. I remember reading it on my break at 3 AM, alone in the half-lit cafeteria. It was as if in that half light I first saw God clearly. I saw not the one dimensional God I carried in my mind but, a multifaceted, infinitely complex and whole God.
Great question, Tamela! “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby with Claude King changed my life because it presented scriptural truth in a fresh, clear and practical way. My husband and I studied it during his first pastorate, then took our church through it. The core value of “Watch where God is working and join Him” not only changed our ministry back then (in the early 1990s) but still affects the way we view life today.
Love that book!! I’ve given away more copies than I can remember!
The book that changed my life was a gift from my godfather on my twelfth birthday. It was a scrapbook that he had lovingly compiled of truths and morals and poetry (some his – some by other poets).
It begins with his poem:
You’re twelve years old today, dear,
And I’m past seventy-three.
It’s back to back we’re dreaming
But it’s different things we see.
And it goes on to describe my looking at life “at its borning best” and his looking “beyond the sunset”.
It is two-thirds of who I am today.
But it’s not a published title – and never will be.
Secondarily, Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God springs immediately to mind. Being attuned to His presence at all times, in all places, and all situations makes life bearable when things would make it unbearable.
I agree!
Out of the Silent Planet.
Because it introduced me, during my college years, to C.S. Lewis. And Lewis would, through a wide range of his works, influence my spiritual life more profoundly than any other single person.
Robert, for what it may be worth, I think ‘Out Of The Silent Planet’ is the best work of science fiction out there, bar none.
You have no idea how much I have enjoyed seeing this wonderful discussion! I am inspired to revisit beloved titles and investigate a few that are new to me. Thank you all so much for being the reason this agency blog is such a great place to be!
“The Key to Everything” by Jack Hayford. The book helped me believe that giving, most especially forgiving, is the key to everything. That changed my life, and keeps changing it, for the better.
It sounds trite, I know, but “To Kill A Mockingbird” most affected my awareness of the world around me. When I read that book as a child, I was oblivious to the context in which it was written – the times I lived in but did not comprehend – yet I loved the story of Scout’s escapades with Jem and Dill, and Boo. When I read the novel as an adult, it had an entirely different meaning. That’s when I understood what fiction could do. That knowledge influenced me as a reader and a writer. I’ve read everything I could find on Harper Lee to help me understand how she produced that book, and why just the one. I even have a handwritten note from her, a treasure I keep in a re-issued first edition given to me by a friend who loved the book as I do.
90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. That book forever opened my eyes to what’s waiting for me and eased my fear of death.
“Home Another Way” by Christa Parrish. It changed the way I look at writing; the deeper the pain, the more flaws the character has, the greater the rescue from God.
Just the way I want to write. 🙂