A good book is a message from the annals of human experience sent from one person, or a group of people, to others, present and future. It is an exciting portal. A good book discovered can be like a long-forgotten message in a bottle, awaiting on time’s shores a discoverer who dares to pick it up and read what is in it.
These messages can span and connect all the ages to come. They give insight into the thinking of a particular person. They often reflect the collective thinking and experience of whole people groups, philosophical movements, and nations. To read a good book is to peer deeply into the minds of others. And it is an exquisite opportunity afforded us to peer into the minds of even the greatest leaders and thinkers of history!
To not read (or to not listen, since many audio books are available to those who, as learners, are more auditory), is to simply sleep through this awesome journey, this “ride,” humanity has been on for thousands of years. And as with any road trip, the best scenery of history is not found in its mere facts discovered in the fast lanes—its names, dates, and data. The best is not seen out on the interstates of time. It is seen in the hearts and minds of history’s people. The real and fascinating scenery—the fiber of humanity’s history—is seen off of the high-speed highways, where the world around is ignored in favor of going fast and “getting somewhere else.” These are the rural highways and roadways and small towns of human thought and experience where things slow down greatly. Where life can be lived, fresh air breathed, and flowers enjoyed. These are houses and the dirt roads filled with and checkered by real human relationships and life experiences, delightful and tragic and everything in between. They are even the city streets off the freeways, bustling with the realities of the lives of humanity’s masses.
Readers of good books (and by this I don’t mean mere entertainment books, which are great to enjoy but simply not what I’m talking about here) are pioneers and discoverers. None of us ever knows when we just might be the one moseying along a shoreline, ever alert and curious, to discover a message in a bottle that has long been lying there but that has been missed by many. We might be the sharer or teacher or messenger who blesses many with what we have seen and heard. No one ever knows when such a message will prove life changing or even be history altering.
Read a good book today. Be a pioneer. Be an explorer. Be a discoverer.