Book Launch Intro: Life without Lack by Dallas Willard

As you can tell from my blog, I value books that whisper the Word to my heart, soul, and mind, and I love getting to read the books before they are officially published and sharing my reviews.   As an educator, reading is a joy for me, and it's even better when I can share about what I've read.

As I'm blogging more, I've determined that I will be sharing reading skills that help make you better readers, while also sharing about the books I'm blessed to help launch. 

Today's mini-lesson: Text Connections for comprehension

 If we read, and gain meaning, or comprehension, one of the best ways to be successful is to have connections to the text.  Teachers know and train their readers to gain meaning from a text you should connect: text to self, text to the world and text to text.  This book is a great fit of this strategy that you can use with anything you read.  Let me give some examples:

Text to Self--

•  I memorized Psalm 23 as an 8 year old.  My kids have all memorized Psalm 23 around age 6.  So I have many memories of this passage and many translations that I have learned in my lifetime.  
• It's a psalm that I have prayed and shared with my children, my campers, and friends, when life might be overwhelming, as the image of the Shepherd caring for His Sheep is comforting and easy to identify with at any age.  

Text to the World

• Psalm 23 is often posted on signs that people hold up at sporting events or rallies.  I might even guess that John 3:16 is the only reference used more than Psalm 23?  
• It's read by Jewish people as well as Christians, and it's the most well known chapter in Hebrew and the Old Testament.  
• Psalm 23 is often referred to in movies or television series by characters in a struggle, especially death or funerals. 
• Even in our Biblically illiterate culture, if asked, what's Psalm 23 about? Most people would say sheep or the shepherd.  It's well known.  

Text to Text

• The book connects the concepts and themes of Psalm 23 from the Word of God to the author's life, habits, mindset, and spiritual growth with the goal of recognizing, that your life can be one without lack.  

When you read a text (be it fiction or nonfiction), making these kinds of connections helps the reader build their comprehension of the new text, and begin to think about higher level concepts, and ultimately leads to us creating something new.  So this is a great skill to practice with anyone who you want to help remember the Word of God, and if you think about it, our preachers, pastor's and Bible teachers often evoke this kind of imagery for the learners they are leading.  

Life without Lack has all those connections, many before I even opened the book and read it.  But as I read the book, there were many more examples, Dr. Willard is an excellent teacher and he helps the reader make text connections throughout the book. But while it was easy to comprehend, it was a sophisticated, well written book that motivated the reader to think critically about how to live in the fullness of Psalm 23.  Here's a little commercial to watch, to introduce the book: 

The first part of the book, was the most sophisticated for me, and I did a lot of re-reading (another great literacy skill) and lots of note taking.  It was so much content to absorb, but it was rich and insightful, I kept coming back to the book to gain more insight about Who God is, and God is incomprehensible to the human mind, yet Willard influenced my brain to know Him more and more. 

Here is a quote that you can ponder today from the book: 

I'll be adding more to my book review as we move into February.  

Comment if you have a specific reading strategy or skill that you'd like some ideas for your Bible whispering and I'll see if I can help you!  Feel free to ask a question about the book.