What Book Has Most Influenced Your Daily Life?

A co-worker asked me a completely random question the other day: "What book would you say has had made the most impact on your day-to-day life?" I was taken aback. (That's right, I just used the word "aback.")

I've thought a lot about my favorite books. I've thought about the most meaningful books or the most fun books. But I had never looked at them from the angle of actual impact on my life. As I thought about my answer, it was kind of convicting how many great books I have read that, if I was honest about them, haven't had a huge influence on my everyday life.

I continued to think about my answer while my co-worker rambled on about the latest self-help book that he had read (which was, of course, the reason he asked the question in the first place). A variety of answers came to my head. Obviously the Bible popped up first, but I felt like that was cheating, since God wrote it. The others: My Utmost for His Highest, the classic devotion by Oswald Chambers; Desiring God, John Piper's amazing analysis of "Christian hedonism"; Pascal's Pensees, which had more deep thoughts in a few pages than most do in a hundred.

In the end, I settled on Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis' simple masterpiece, as the one that had the most impact on me. I picked it was because of a particular piece of writing that has stuck with me through the years. There's a line that the Holy Spirit brings back to my mind pretty regularly, almost like a Scripture verse you have memorized and that has come to mean a lot.

It’s in chapter 8, where Lewis is discussing whether Christianity is hard or easy. He is talking about how hard the Christian life seems to be for many people because they think that God is calling us simply to behave.

He states that God isn't calling us to give merely our behavior to Him but our whole selves. Our entire life must be completely transformed by Him so that we see the things He sees and do the things He would do. It makes the Christian life so much easier than simply trying to behave well.

So how do we do that?

Here's where my favorite line comes in: "The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day."

One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my young Christian walk is that the Lord makes it so much easier to live this life if we are looking up instead of down. Constantly looking to God, constantly focusing on Him, constantly listening for Him will do more to make you like Jesus than all the determination in the world. Instead of trying to do good, I have found that it is much easier, and more enjoyable, to try to think on God, and then let Him work through me.

How about you? What book has made the biggest impact on your day-to-day life? I'm looking for a new book, so I'd love to hear some other recommendations.