Already and Not Yet: Reading More Intentionally This Season

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I want to spend my time — especially the quiet hours in the day.

For quite a while, it was easy to let the hours slip into scrolling or half-watching something just to fill the space. But I’ve been feeling a pull to return to books. Not in a rigid, “I have to read more” kind of way, but in a slower, more intentional way. There’s something about holding a real book, turning actual pages, and giving my mind the chance to settle that feels different. With the brain fog that sometimes comes with my health, reading has become a way to strengthen my focus again. It’s not always easy; in fact, it's mostly hard, but when I can stay with a story or an idea, it feels like I’m exercising that part of my mind.

At the same time, I’ve been finishing books I started a while ago and never quite completed. One of those was The Gospel of the Kingdom by George Eldon Ladd. I picked it up because I’ve been wrestling with how we understand the Kingdom of God — especially coming from a background where I often heard that the Kingdom is mostly future. Ladd’s perspective was really clarifying for me. Even though he came from a dispensational background himself, he helped show how Scripture presents the Kingdom as both already here and not yet fully here. That “already and not yet” tension has been such a hopeful and grounding way to think about our lives right now.

It made me realize how easy it can be to live as if we’re just waiting for everything to begin later. I have done this with so many parts of my life — like my health — it just creates anxiety. But if the Kingdom is already breaking in — if Jesus is already reigning — then the ordinary days in front of us actually matter. The way we love our people, the way we create beauty in our homes, the way we choose to read good stories and think deeply… it all participates in something bigger. What we believe happens in the "end" matters today. That perspective has been shaping how I want to move through this season.

It’s also why the book bundles at Timber & Tide feel meaningful to me. I love the idea of creating little invitations for people to slow down and enjoy a real book again. Not because we have to perform some big reading goal, but because there’s something good and human about giving our attention to a story, letting it shape us, and maybe even talking about it with someone else.

I’m not doing this perfectly. Some days the fog wins and the screens pull harder. But I’m trying to choose books a little more often — and to offer that same invitation to others through the bundles we’re putting together.

If you’ve been feeling the tug to read more slowly or more intentionally too, I’d love to hear what’s been drawing you back to books lately. Sometimes just naming it out loud helps.