Whew!

Whew! I feel so much better. Last week I put myself on a form of book restriction. Until I make some dents in my "to read" bookshelves, I will only allow myself to buy a book after I have read five. Soon I will lower it to four and then to three, but not until I have made some progress. I am relieved to report that I have finished five books:

Spiritual Theology by Diogenes Allen
The End of Reason by Ravi Zacharias
Proclamation and Theology by William Willimon
How to be Evangelical Without Being Conservative by Roger Olson
and
Jesus by Chuck Swindoll

My next stack of "to reads" includes the following:

Defending Life by Francis Beckwith
On Pascal by Douglas Groothuis
The Work We Have to Do by Mark Noll
The Joy of Repentance by Dr. Kerry Skinner
They Like Jesus but Not the Church by Dan Kimball

Because of the weight of the Beckwith book, odds are good that it will not be finished in this stack of five. I'll probably have started and finished other books before I am done with this.

I am also thinking of giving myself "two book credits" for books that are more than 500 pages. I fear putting those on hold too long if I don't give myself such motivation. One such book that I am quite excited about is Mark Noll's A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada.

Now I can buy a book, which means I can go into a book store without anxiety. I went into a Christian bookstore to buy some DVDs, and it caused great interior tension. I will be doing really well if I can finish five more without buying a book, for then I would have a two book credit.