Among the accomplishments for the holiday week were getting in a bit of reading. In the midst of breezing through Max Lucado's Come Thirsty, I still can't help but kick myself for waiting so long to pick this one up. I've even reviewed it to locate some excerpt that might come close to capturing what it is that made me enjoy this book so much and I've got to admit to coming up blank. Part of the appreciation for the book is that Isaiah 55 is among my favorite scriptures for how I relate to God. The NIV translation leads it off with "Come thirsty ..." as the clarion call. Every other translation I've seen seems to be a bit lacking for my own taste. Lucado captures the spirit of aquatic parables amazingly over this all-too-brief book.

Earlier, I somehow managed to finally put John Eldredge's The Way of the Wild Heart to rest. I have to confess to not enjoying it as much as the predecessor: Wild At Heart. In part, that's just due to the followup being obviously derivative in subject matter. It read a bit less like a followup than it did a clarification in many parts. The earlier book got a bit of criticism, some of it warranted, a lot of it not. Perhaps the most confusing aspect of the book is Eldredge's reliance upon the outdoors, physical combat, and masculine aggressiveness as ingredients to his analysis of the male mind & soul. I don't necessarily argue that they shouldn't be, but I'm not sure Eldredge fully captures the way that those elements apply to the lives of men who grow up in a variety of situations. He tends to stick to his own background as well as his own fathering of his sons. Which is probably great if you live out in the wild of Colorado. But if you live in a more urban setting, there's a good deal of translation that must be done while reading. Eldredge acknowledges this disparity a bit too quickly before he goes back to his own routine. All that is to say that his analysis could be better, but what's left isn't altogether bad. If you've still not managed to read Wild At Heart, I'd still say pick it up if you can. If you've read that one and are contemplating reading the new one, I leave that call for you to make. For my taste I'd just as soon have re-read the older book instead, though.

That leaves me with my next reading assignment: Philip Yancey's Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? Just a quick glance through the book makes me a rather quick fan of Yancey's writing style. That could make for a few easy calls for upcoming reading assignments as Yancey has a handful of other wonderful books out there that I haven't even cracked open for a preview. If I remain this enamored with Yancey's writing by the time I'm done with the book, I may have to pick up the rest of them.

Also, there's two book notes for the upcoming Compass Class and Koinonia series. For the Compass Class, we're going over Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind. For Koinonia, we're going over an Andy Stanley workbook: Discovering God's Will. It appears the Koinonia teachings will be based on the video series that goes with the workbook. I got the workbook just for the heck of it. I haven't read Meyer's book, but it's hard not to notice the elements of it that both she and Joel Osteen share in their teachings.

Beyond that, I've still got Brennan Mannings' Ruthless Trust on the bookshelf and I'm once more in the market for a decent devotional. Realizing I'm finicky as all getout, I've talked myself out of buying any number of devotionals the past few weeks. There's a few that have always been at or near the top for consideration, so maybe indecisiveness is one of those battles going on in my own mind. And maybe we'll find a cure for that in Compass Class. Stay tuned in case that miracle comes to pass.

UPDATE: Tim, in the comments here, reminds me that a Louis Giglio book is becoming long overdue for me to pick up. True enough ... true enough. That said, I'm more inclined to start with The Air I Breathe as the leadoff.