Why I Gave Up Secular & Fiction Books For A Month

If you know me, you know that I love to read. Since I learned how, it’s been one of my favorite pass times. I grew up reading The Pilgrim’s Progress and John G Paton’s Missionary Adventures to the New Hebreties. I was enthralled by End of the Spear and Through Gates of Splendor.

As I grew older, I stumbled into the world of Narnia and then Middle Earth. I found classics and fell in love. The beautiful writing gave me inspiration for my own tales of adventure.

Somewhere along the line, I started reading popular books. Not often, but occasionally. My main reason was to see why everyone loved them so much. I wanted to see if they had anything of value or if they were just cheap and sense-pleasing, like sugary foods.

I read The Hunger Games, Fault in our Stars, Harry Potter, Eat Pray Love, Tuesdays with Morrie, The Book Theif, etc. I hated most of them and had a lot of fun writing reviews stating my unpopular opinions.

I also delved into the world of right-wing politics and greatly enjoyed books making fun of our modern culture. The Babylon Bee’s Guide to Wokeness, What is a Woman, I’m Your Emotional Support Animal (that was an awful book and I regret spending so much time reading it *gags*), Church of Cowards, The Madness of Crowds, etc.

I read numerous Agatha Christie mysteries and filled my mind with murder – sometimes senseless, sometimes with motives of hatred or greed.

And really, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with reading mysteries or books on culture. There are things to gain – especially from knowing where we are culturally and having our eyes open so that we don’t get sucked into the lies. But for me, in that time, I was focusing on it too much and it turned me away from God.

I read secular memoirs. I disliked most of them, but again, kept reading to see what all the hype was about. The books that I truly loved took backseat. Worse though, the books that encouraged my faith vanished and were replaced with stories filled with trashy language and stupid romance.

One afternoon I’d finished a particularly bad memoir filled with a lot of questionable content. I’d wasted thirteen hours on something that gave me nothing spiritually or intellectually. God spoke to my heart and gave me an idea – or a command!

For a month, I’d give up all modern popular books, all fiction (I made an exception for allegories), and anything that didn’t encourage me spiritually.

It was really hard at first. I missed my fiction more than I thought I would. I found myself wanting to curl up with an Agatha Christie book or to delve into a travel memoir that told of travels to exotic places.

I wasn’t excited as I looked through my severely shorted to-read list for something to listen to on my morning walks. I decided on St. Augustine’s Confessions.

You guys…

I’ve never felt God speaking to me so clearly through a book before (except the Bible, of course). Every time I listened to it, it was like that chapter was handed to me directly from God, like I could hear his voice through Augustine’s words.

There were so many beautiful passages and thought-provoking quotes. My goodness…

“Come, O Lord, and stir our hearts. Call us back to yourself. Kindle your fire in us and carry us away. Let us scent your fragrance and taste your sweetness. Let us love you and hasten to your side.”

Augustine’s love and devotion to God bled through every word. His faith was real and made the whole Christian facade that I’d built seem so fake and flimsy.

“Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

“For my will was perverse and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when I did not resist the habit, it became a necessity.”

“Thus my two wills—the old and the new, the carnal and the spiritual—were in conflict within me, and by their discord they tore my soul apart.”

“Give me grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will!”

The whole month was like that. I read/listened to a lot of C.S. Lewis’ works. The Abolition of Man, The Great Divorce, Reflections on the Psalms, Surprised by Joy, and What Christians Believe.

The distractions of the easy-to-read, fun, lighthearted books were gone and I was able to focus on the spiritual books that I had put off because they took more brain power to understand and they weren’t as easily enjoyable.

I learned so much from C.S. Lewis in that month. It was God speaking to me again, challenging my faith and confronting me with so many areas where I’d fallen to sleep.

I read so many good, solid, faith-building books. I missed my stories, but it grew less and less as the month went on. When it finished, I was sad. I felt so close to God. I felt him speaking to my heart and I had hope that my faith could be real and living. I didn’t want that to end. I didn’t want to go back to the cheap books.

I’m so thankful that God prompted me to take that month to read things that would strengthen my faith instead of tear it down. Books are so much more important than we realize. We become what we feed our minds.

~Hattush

What types of books do you find encourage your faith? What author has been most influential in your faith journey?