Skim...And I'm not Talking about Milk

Are you the kind of person that reads every word on every page?

This past week, I've started three books. Give or take, I've read about fifty pages of each. For whatever reason, I decided none of them were actually good enough to plow through. My philosophy on reading is: life is too short to read bad books. So, I only take time with the good ones. If you think about it, this is actually a terrible perspective.

My reading habits got me to thinking.

You see, I'm a skimmer. My eyes quickly scan the words on a page, line after line until I grasp the big picture. It doesn't matter if I skip entire sentences, or even paragraphs at a time. Just as long as I get the gist. Just as long as I have a sense of what's going on. That's all I really need, right? Unless there is some brilliantly written prose, I don't need to be bogged down by every word.

Yesterday, after I put down "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" for the hundreth time, a question popped into my head.

What if I treated people the way I handle books?

I start and stop so many novels, it's ridiculous. I lose interest quickly. I skim, until I find something worthwhile. Gloss over the text until I get to the "good part." Pick 'em up, put 'em down until I find one worth flipping pages for... if I treated people this way, I wouldn't have any friendships, any real relationships to speak of.

The beautiful thing about life is that every one of us has a story, words on pages. And every word is important, it all matters.

Aren't you glad Christ doesn't skip the pages of your life? He doesn't flippantly decide whether or not certain parts of your story are worth reading or not. He cares about it all.

If we are truly loving people, skimming isn't an option.