A number of years ago I decided to go all-in with ebooks. I was in transition at the time, having just resigned as a vocational pastor to instead be a non-vocational pastor whose primary focus is writing. My library was at the church and I didn’t fancy bringing it all home. Neither did I have space in my small house for a big collection of books. I had already been wavering between the two formats, but allowed practical considerations to cast the final vote. I sold some of my books, gave the rest away, and have pretty much stayed the course. Today I have perhaps 50 printed books and several thousand electronic (the majority of which are provided by publishers for review purposes).

That said, the world of ebooks is still pretty goofy in ways and pretty confusing in others. For example, one platform offers the most books and the best hardware for reading them (Amazon/Kindle) while another offers the best variety and experience for the kind of books I rely on for research and sermon preparation (Logos). The two are completely incompatible. And so I buy and read one kind of book on one platform and another kind of book on the other. It’s silly and unfortunate, but at this time necessary.
Then there is the issue of future compatibility. I expect we all have files and software from the past that we can no longer use and no longer access because either the software manufacturer has gone out of business or the old programs will no longer run on new machines. While I have a reasonable degree of confidence in both Amazon and Logos, I am not so naive as to think that either is too big to fail or to believe that I will necessarily always have full access to everything I have paid for. That concerns me.
Then, of course, there is the issue of ownership. It is well understood by now that when we purchase electronic assets, we do not actually own them as much as we secure the rights to use them. For this reason, I have had to come to see books as something closer to a service than a possession. There was a time when I owned collections of CDs and DVDs—of music and movies. But streaming services came along that made both redundant. Similarly, my library has essentially been replaced with a service—with a collection of books I have paid to have rights to, though not to own. This has required a shift in mindset, but it is one I have been willing to make.
Another big issue is that of Amazon’s utter dominance of the market and their increasing willingness to refuse or remove books that are opposed to their ideologies. This concerns me a lot, though the issue is not solved by switching to paper since Amazon’s dominance in the marketplace is so complete that few books, whether physical or electronic, will be printed if they cannot be sold through its channels.
But alongside such drawbacks are real benefits. Electronic books are almost always cheaper than printed books which means I can have all the same resources but spend less on them. Electronic books take up no space, so I do not have hundreds or thousands of bulky objects cluttering up my home. Electronic books have no form, so cannot be lost or damaged by fire or flood. They can, though, be taken with me wherever I go so that my entire library is available to me at all times and in all situations. This often has proven very handy.
Both Kindle and Logos have one unique function I have come to rely on—one that is not easily replicated by their physical equivalents. For Kindle, it is the ability to make highlights that are then synced into the tool(s) I use for knowledge storage and management. As I outlined in “Three New Tools That Make a Huge Difference,” I have come to rely on Roam Research to store key information, and I use a tool called ReadWise to automatically sync all my highlights into it. This same tool also emails me a daily newsletter with some of those highlights so I can continue to refresh my memory about key quotes and significant ideas. This has become key to my workflow and retention.
The unique function for Logos is the ability to perform powerful searches across my entire library. By taking advantage of Logos’ many sales and free resources I have accumulated a significant library of books, commentaries, sermons, and reference works, and rely heavily on the ability to search across all of them. The Sermon Starter Guide, Passage Guide, and Bible Word Study Guide are tools I don’t ever want to do without. I do not at all miss the days when I’d spend hours pulling books from my shelves and having eight or ten of them spread across my desk.
Very practically, I tend to purchase general market and Christian living books in Kindle format, but reference books in Logos. Essentially, if I expect to use a book in preparing sermons or Bible studies, I prefer to have it in Logos; if I expect to merely read a book and perhaps refer to it infrequently in the future, I am content to have it on Kindle.
As the Kindle hardware has developed it has gotten better and better so that both the Paperwhite and Oasis are exceptional devices, especially when compared to earlier generations. I also access the Kindle app on my computer, though primarily to search within books and to easily copy and paste information into other apps. As for Logos, I have long since stopped using the downloadable app to instead use the browser-based equivalent which has all the functions I need and which runs considerably faster.
I do at times miss the simple pleasure of a printed book. There is still something about the form of it—about the look, the feel, the format. The book as we have known it for so many generations is a wonderful medium and one that carries out its task remarkably well. But books have their downsides and ebooks their upsides and in the end, I have decided to prioritize the latter. And as it stands today, I have no great regrets.

We live at a time in which we are constantly inundated with information. We live much of our lives within the glow of digital devices that are constantly beeping, buzzing, and flashing to tell us there is new information available to be had—text messages, emails, tweets, headlines.
But in such a context, it is important to understand the distinction between information and wisdom. Where information is mere facts and figures, wisdom is the application of those facts and figures to real life. Man shall not and cannot live by information alone. He must live by wisdom. “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight” (Proverbs 4:7). If we are not careful, we can read our Bibles like we read the news—as a means to gain facts but not as a means to grow in wisdom.
Thomas Watson reminds us that simply reading the Bible is not enough, for mere facts will do us little good. He says, “The reason we come away so cold from reading the word is, because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation.” We must slowly ponder it, we must diligently apply ourselves to it, we must let ourselves meditate upon it until we have grown not only in information but in wisdom.

The grass at Glen Oaks Cemetery had already begun to fade from its bright summer green to its drab winter brown on the day we first visited. The November breeze blew cold upon us as we walked the rows of graves to choose the spot where we would bury our son. We eventually chose a plot near the end of a long row, beneath the shade of a young tree. A few days later we watched his coffin be lowered into the ground in that very spot. We heard the pastor, my dearest friend, say the dreaded words, “Dust to dust.” We stood together as a family, arms linked, tears flowing, hearts breaking.

And now we have come to the next November and I find myself standing in that very same spot reflecting on a year that has come and gone. I have heard some people refer to this as a “deathday,” a morbid parallel to “birthday.” I prefer to stick with the wordier and more formal “anniversary of his death.” And, indeed, today is the first anniversary of the day Nick went to heaven. A full year has passed since we received the news that he had collapsed, since we heard that he had been rushed to hospital, since the doctor called to say, “We did everything we could.” A full year has passed since Aileen and I looked each other in the eye and said, through sobs, “We can do this.” A full year has passed since a night so traumatic that most of it has disappeared from memory, or perhaps been buried in a place beyond remembering.
The last year has brought the deepest sorrows I’ve ever known. I have had to say farewell to my firstborn child, my only son, without having said a proper “goodbye.” I have witnessed the people I love most in all the world passing through their darkest valley. I have sat awake long into the night to soothe sorrows and dry tears. I have laid awake through the wee hours preaching truth to myself meant to counter waves of fear and anxiety. In the darkness of night I have awoken to the cries and sobs of hearts that have been so badly broken. I have learned to grieve, I have learned to weep, I have learned to lament.
But though the last year has been one of so many sorrows, it has also been one of so many blessings. As I look back on the most difficult of years, I also look back on the most blessed of years. As I ponder the year since my hardest day, I find my heart rising in praise to God. I find my eyes wet with tears, but my heart filled with gratitude.
I am grateful for the gift of a son. And though he was taken from me so soon, I wouldn’t trade those years for all the riches of all the worlds. Had I known I would have him for so short a time, I would still have considered it a blessing to know him, to love him, to raise him. I thank God for entrusting to me so fine a son, so godly a young man.
I am grateful for the gift of love. My family has been so well cared for this year—loved by family and friends, by neighbors and strangers, by those who know us best and those who barely know us at all. We have not for a moment been alone, not for a moment been deserted.
I am grateful for the gift of providence. God has often used “coincidences” to minister to us on our hardest days and in our most difficult moments. Chance encounters have proven to not be chance at all. God has sovereignly woven together a set of circumstances that have proven his love, his care, his presence.
I am grateful for the gift of heaven. Never has heaven been more real, more present, more precious, more close. This year has given me a whole new longing to be there—to be where Christ is, where Nick is—to be in that place where all fears are stilled, where all sorrows are soothed, where all tears are dried.
I am grateful for the gift of faith. God has given us faith to believe in his character and promises, to acknowledge his right to take as much as to give. Not one of us has turned on God. Not one of us has charged him with wrong. Not one of us has refused to bless his name. Our hearts have been shattered but, by his grace, our faith has held strong.
I am grateful for the gift of comfort. God has comforted us by his Spirit and his people, by word and by deed. Not once have we been without truths to rely on, gospel to cling to, shoulders to cry upon. God has made good on his every promise.
I am grateful for these gifts and so many others. I love God more than ever. He has proven worthy of my confidence, my affection, my deepest devotion. I honor him, I trust him, I bow the knee to him. 
A recent journey led me through the local countryside, and as I drove, I observed fields that until recently had been green and full. But now they were now stark and bare. The farmers had gathered their crops into their barns to supply them through the long winter to come. And in much that way, as I reflect on the year that was, I can see that the God of all grace had gathered great stores of goodness and mercy for us. And he then dispensed them at just the right time and in just the right ways. We have known his abundance. He has met our every need, he has spoken comfort to our every sorrow, he has ministered truth to our every fear. He has been most present when most needed. He has not left us. He has not forsaken us. He never would. He never will.
(I will take this opportunity to remind you of the Nick Challies Memorial Scholarship at Boyce College and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—a scholarship in Nick’s honor meant to enable others to carry out the ministry that was so important to him—to minister the Word of God in Canada. The scholarship is now receiving funds from donors and distributing them to students. We would be honored if you would consider making a donation.)
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