Dharius Daniels - 5 Books That Changed My Life as a Christian

What’s up? Listen, in this video, I want to share with you the top five books that have impacted my life the most. All right, let’s go. Well, hey, check this out, man. Years ago, I came across a couple of quotes by Jim Rohn that really revolutionized my perspective on self-improvement. I want you to catch it. The first quote went something like this: «Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.» That caused me to realize that one of the most important investments I could ever make is the investment I make in myself. What I began to see in our culture—and I think it is easy for any of us to get caught up in this—is that it’s very easy to make investments in ourselves, but it takes more intentionality to make one of the most important investments we can make, which is the investment we make in ourselves. So he says, «Work hard on yourself, then you do on your job.» The second thing he says is this: «Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.» Oh, I just think both of those quotes point to the importance of self-improvement, and one of the pathways to self-improvement is learning. One of the ways you can learn is through reading. There used to be a saying: «Leaders are readers.» I partially agree; leaders are learners. Whatever vehicle is the best for you to get that information, that’s the vehicle you need to use. For a large part, a lot of my quest for self-improvement has come through books, and I want to share with you the top five books that have impacted my life. Now, these top five are not necessarily in any specific order, but I think they are, unequivocally, the top five. There are some others that are honorable mentions, and maybe I’ll do a second top five later. But the top five is right here. Here we go! All right, number one: «Emotionally Healthy Spirituality» by a guy named Peter Scazzero. Absolutely, unequivocally, game-changing for me. One of the things it helped me see was the connection between spiritual maturity and emotional health. Now, watch this—not just emotional intelligence, which deals primarily with self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. So there’s awareness and management. Whereas I think, when it comes to health, it’s not just, «How can I manage this thing?» It’s «Where did this thing come from, and how can I address it so I’m not having to manage it for the rest of my life?» Anyway, man, one of the things he says is that you can’t increase spiritual maturity without increasing emotional health, and that part of the evidence of your spiritual growth is that many people confuse spiritual growth with spiritual knowledge; they’re not the same thing. Just because a person has a reservoir of information doesn’t mean they’re applying that information. You can have a head full of stuff you never use. So the point I’m making is this: even when you look at the evidence of the Spirit’s work in someone’s life, it’s called the fruit of the Spirit. Well, much of what you see in the fruit of the Spirit speaks to how a person’s spirituality impacts their emotional life, like joy and peace, and temperance, which is self-control. So that book, «Emotionally Healthy Spirituality,» undoubtedly is one that really, really impacted me the most. I think it has affected my family tremendously, and it has had a significant impact on those I lead and serve. So, number one: «Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.» Here’s number two: number two is a book called «Boundaries» by a guy named Dr. Henry Cloud. This was also a game changer for me. In this book, he paints an amazing picture of a fence. He’s literally saying, «Hey, I want you to envision yourself being in your yard, and you see a fence, right? You see stuff growing up on the other side of someone else’s fence—weeds, trees—just terrible.» So he’s like, «The fence is the boundary. The fence delineates what you are and what you are not responsible for.» Living without boundaries means you can end up living your life unintentionally responsible for somebody else’s irresponsibility. Oh, it was such a game changer for me! Now, this is what’s powerful about boundaries: boundaries are not intended to be an attack on a person; they are simply the way you advocate for yourself. Just because you’re advocating for yourself doesn’t mean you’re attacking them. Boundaries aren’t always about protecting yourself from another person in a relationship; sometimes they are actually the way you protect the relationship. It sometimes gets to the point where if I don’t set a boundary, one of the things that’s going to happen is there’s going to be so much toxicity, bitterness, and resentment in the relationship that we may not have any relationship at all at some point. Very powerful. Now, here’s one of the things he did: some exegetical work that he conducted, drawing something out of Scripture in the book of Galatians, where Paul says, «Bear one another’s burdens…»