Chase The Lion: If Your Dream Doesn't Scare You, It's Too Small
If there was one book that I had to say was the most important to me personally in the last few years it would be Chase The Lion: If Your Dream Doesn't Scare You, It's Too Small by Mark Batterson.
In my early life and through school I didn't really like to read. Maybe the books were just not interesting. Maybe it was that I didn't get to pick what I wanted to read. Or maybe it was just the simple fact that I was being forced to read but whatever the reason I was not a reader. Soon after graduating from school, however, I got around people who read because they wanted to. I finally understood that reading is one of the best ways to learn, to gain knowledge and really grow. I also learned that when you are picking the books you want to read, you can find ones that interest you and hold your attention and if they don't, put them down and find another one that does.
For years I read heavily. As time went on, though, I fell out of the habit of reading and looking back I can see that during that time I was not learning and growing like I had been earlier in my life. I had become stagnant and had settled into my life. Unfortunately, I was not as happy as I could have been. I was a bit frustrated. These are things that happen when you are not moving forward, not striving for something more, when you have lost your dream.
Then in January of 2017 I was introduced to Chase The Lion. One of the pastors at our church was starting a new ministry. To help him get things off the ground Mark Batterson donated 300 copies of Chase The Lion for them to sell to help with early funding of the ministry. It had been some time since I had read anything but there had been some stirrings of a dream in me again. Knowing how much reading had meant to me earlier in my life I had been wanting to get back on a reading regimen but hadn't done anything about it. I figured I would support the ministry by buying a book and see if I could get back into reading regularly.
Did it work? You bet it did! The stories and lessons in Chase The Lion just popped off the pages. Mark's style is easy to read and although it is not a novel or a fable he does relate the lessons of the book through telling the stories of many of King David's mighty men. This renewed in me the desire to grow and move forward in life and with that came an appetite to read. Over the last two years since reading Chase The Lion I have read an average of 35 books a year, not bad for someone who is not really a fast reader.
Chase The Lion is the follow-up to Batterson's book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive when Opportunity Roars. In In a Pit, we are introduced to Benaiah, who after chasing a lion into a pit on a showy day and killing it became King David's personal body guard and later under King Solomon, commander and chief of Israel's army.
For Chase The Lion, Batterson brings us not only back to Benaiah and what he was able to do and accomplish but it also relates the stories of many of King David's 37 mighty men. The powerful stories from 2 Samuel 23 are not only riveting but they are inspiring and able to ignite the flame of a dream within you or feed a small fire and turn it into a rampaging inferno.
There is Josheb-Basshebeth who raised his spear against 800 men, and wins! How about Eleazar, who fought so long and hard that his hand froze to his sword. These are just two of the might men we get to know in Chase The Lion.
What really makes Chase The Lion so inspiring is that Batterson is able to take these men and their accomplishments from back in the time of King David and bring them into today. He relates their accomplishments to people who have done great, or even "impossible" things in our life times. We hear of people like the Wright brothers, Albert Schweitzer, Will Smith and John Wooden, to name just a few.
By mixing these modern stories of accomplishment with those of 2 Samuel 23, Batterson weaves together a message that is not only entertaining but powerful. He takes you on a mental ride and you find yourself thinking about your dreams and what you want to accomplish as you are reading about what others have done and what they did go achieve their goals.
Ultimately, Chase The Lion got me living again. It is responsible for moves I am making in my life to improve not only me and my families lives but the lives of those around me. It is responsible for my desire to put together this reading list and I know it can inspire you to bigger and better things in your life. Remember "If your dream doesn't scare you, it's too small."
In my early life and through school I didn't really like to read. Maybe the books were just not interesting. Maybe it was that I didn't get to pick what I wanted to read. Or maybe it was just the simple fact that I was being forced to read but whatever the reason I was not a reader. Soon after graduating from school, however, I got around people who read because they wanted to. I finally understood that reading is one of the best ways to learn, to gain knowledge and really grow. I also learned that when you are picking the books you want to read, you can find ones that interest you and hold your attention and if they don't, put them down and find another one that does.
For years I read heavily. As time went on, though, I fell out of the habit of reading and looking back I can see that during that time I was not learning and growing like I had been earlier in my life. I had become stagnant and had settled into my life. Unfortunately, I was not as happy as I could have been. I was a bit frustrated. These are things that happen when you are not moving forward, not striving for something more, when you have lost your dream.
Then in January of 2017 I was introduced to Chase The Lion. One of the pastors at our church was starting a new ministry. To help him get things off the ground Mark Batterson donated 300 copies of Chase The Lion for them to sell to help with early funding of the ministry. It had been some time since I had read anything but there had been some stirrings of a dream in me again. Knowing how much reading had meant to me earlier in my life I had been wanting to get back on a reading regimen but hadn't done anything about it. I figured I would support the ministry by buying a book and see if I could get back into reading regularly.
Did it work? You bet it did! The stories and lessons in Chase The Lion just popped off the pages. Mark's style is easy to read and although it is not a novel or a fable he does relate the lessons of the book through telling the stories of many of King David's mighty men. This renewed in me the desire to grow and move forward in life and with that came an appetite to read. Over the last two years since reading Chase The Lion I have read an average of 35 books a year, not bad for someone who is not really a fast reader.
Chase The Lion is the follow-up to Batterson's book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive when Opportunity Roars. In In a Pit, we are introduced to Benaiah, who after chasing a lion into a pit on a showy day and killing it became King David's personal body guard and later under King Solomon, commander and chief of Israel's army.
For Chase The Lion, Batterson brings us not only back to Benaiah and what he was able to do and accomplish but it also relates the stories of many of King David's 37 mighty men. The powerful stories from 2 Samuel 23 are not only riveting but they are inspiring and able to ignite the flame of a dream within you or feed a small fire and turn it into a rampaging inferno.
There is Josheb-Basshebeth who raised his spear against 800 men, and wins! How about Eleazar, who fought so long and hard that his hand froze to his sword. These are just two of the might men we get to know in Chase The Lion.
What really makes Chase The Lion so inspiring is that Batterson is able to take these men and their accomplishments from back in the time of King David and bring them into today. He relates their accomplishments to people who have done great, or even "impossible" things in our life times. We hear of people like the Wright brothers, Albert Schweitzer, Will Smith and John Wooden, to name just a few.
By mixing these modern stories of accomplishment with those of 2 Samuel 23, Batterson weaves together a message that is not only entertaining but powerful. He takes you on a mental ride and you find yourself thinking about your dreams and what you want to accomplish as you are reading about what others have done and what they did go achieve their goals.
Ultimately, Chase The Lion got me living again. It is responsible for moves I am making in my life to improve not only me and my families lives but the lives of those around me. It is responsible for my desire to put together this reading list and I know it can inspire you to bigger and better things in your life. Remember "If your dream doesn't scare you, it's too small."
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