Writing It All Down

I have been kicking around the idea of starting a blog for a couple weeks now. While a large portion of my fulltime job is coding websites, it isn't what I originally planned to do. As I was recently working on setting up a blog for someone, I thought that it might be nice to starting something like this where I could build skills and passion for work, have fun and profit spiritually.

The final push came as I attempted to organize my reading for this year. I'm notoriously bad at keeping focused on a single book, which can result in a lot of half-read books on the shelf. As I was sketching out my plan to finish at least one book a month and what each of those books might be, I remembered that some bloggers had been starting a reading challenge based upon Banner of Truth's Puritan Paperbacks. Since some of these books were on my list of things to read and others would be blogging through the books at the same time, I decided to jump in.

However, it can definitely be a challenge to read and retain. In the past, I've found that it helps me to understand what I am reading when I have to articulate it to someone else.

So, that brings me to this blog.

It's primarily here so I have a place to work through what I am reading, mainly focusing on the Puritan Reading Challenge. I don't claim to have any special insights about these books or Scripture, but I hope to grow as I seek to work these things out and I invite your thoughts and questions. Also, if I see helpful or interesting information elsewhere, I'll try to mention it here.

So, hopefully this will be a worthwhile exercise that God will use as I walk through this year. It's encouraging to see how God has used other blogs to help me. I'm thankful for old favorites like (Shepherd's Scrapbook) as well as exciting new blogs by friends at Drexel Cru (3500 Minutiae) and CJ Mahaney (C.J. Mahaney's view from the cheap seats). It's amazing to see how a technology that can so easily cause us to be self-centered and inward-focused can also be used to direct us to God's glory and the wonder of the cross.