For Christmas this year, my parents gave each of us a set of books or commentaries from my father’s library. Dad was still living at the time, and he carefully selected the sets of books he wanted each person to have, based on his or her interests or reading habits. Because he could no longer get out of bed—let alone walk the stairway that led to his office on the top floor—he would tell us exactly where to find the books on his multiple well-ordered bookshelves around the room. While that fact alone is worthy of its own blog post, it is not the focus of this one.

The part that all of us loved best about receiving these books was that my dad had underlined, highlighted, and made personal notes in many of them. To see what was important to him, recorded for all time, was in many ways far more impactful than the published contents of the pages themselves.

When my oldest nephew received his books, he made a unique observation: the underlining and page marking continued throughout the entire book! That simple action spoke volumes to my nephew, and as he mentioned it to me, I quickly saw the depth of character, humility, and thirst for learning this represented, particularly as I thought about my own bookshelves.

Knowing full well what I would find, I walked over and pulled a recently “completed” book off the third shelf. Twenty chapters, carefully marked and underlined—through chapter 16. Maybe I just didn’t need the material in the last four chapters, I tried to convince myself. However, it was a book on Christian living, and I needed that material—oh how I needed it! Maybe I was too convicted by the material in chapters 1-16 to continue. All the more reason to finish!

Surely this book was the exception.

Try as I might, I couldn’t fool myself into believing that. As I continued to pull book after book from my shelves, I saw the visual proof: I had devoured with great delight the first portion of the book, had become sidetracked at times throughout the middle of the book, and all too often had not bothered to complete the final chapter or chapters of the book (or had at least stopped marking anything by that point), most likely distracted by the next “must-read” book that I had heard about.

For those who like fiction, I’m sure it would be difficult to set a book aside without knowing “the ending.” However, this practice sadly seems to be the norm among nonfiction enthusiasts. Perhaps that’s why my father’s final-chapter markings stood out in such strong contrast to “the norm.”

Finish the job. See it through. Learn everything there is to learn. Don’t just read it—apply it. What you read might not help you personally, but it might help you to help someone else. Don’t stop until the end. Never give up. End strong. Humbly acknowledge your need to receive help from someone else. Gather wisdom. End strong.

I’m planning to spend much of February reading—and marking!—the closing chapter(s) of far too many books, with several of the concise reminders above prodding me to the finish line. The correlation between their application to finishing a book and living life with purpose, direction, and an unending desire to live, give, and learn is too great to ignore.

“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do” (the words of Jesus to His heavenly Father, as recorded in John 17:4, NIV).

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SURPRISE! To have your name entered into a random drawing for a FREE $25.00 Amazon gift card (drawing held at 12:01 a.m. (EST), Thursday, February 5, 2015), leave a comment here or on our Facebook page, sharing only ONE of the italicized concise reminders (from the next-to-the-last paragraph) that could help you to “read to the end!” The winner will be announced in Thursday’s blog post! Only one entry per person.

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