I was a bit envious of the people I knew with cell phones. The phones and the fees were frightfully expensive nearly 30 years ago, so the people I knew who had them had been given them by their companies. Ignorantly, I thought only of the upside. But a friend with a cell phone gave me something to think about. “Don’t get one. This phone chains me to the company at all times,” he said. While my heart dreamed of owning a cell phone and screamed “freedom,” this man owned a cell phone and warned “servitude.”

I caught myself again flirting with envy as I watched younger generations have so much social access with their smartphones. Perhaps I could have maneuvered my adolescence with less awkwardness if I had had better tools like smartphones. Yet even casual observation tells you there are some disturbing problems. Teens walking together, hands on phones, without ever talking to one another. An exponential rise in distracted-driving accidents. A scary increase in mental-health problems and suicides among youth.

The 15-year-old lead actress in a recent movie about middle school observed, “[Social media] was made to connect us. But…more than anything it’s made us more self-obsessed, and that just leads to loneliness.” The director of that movie said the internet “follows you everywhere now. It follows you into your bedroom. And then you get into your bed at the end of the night, and you have a choice between all of the information in the history of the world, or the back of your eyelids, which is not a great choice—between oblivion or infinity. Is there a middle ground where these kids can exist?”

All this cries out for balance, for stewardship of our time and even of our bodies and our brain space. Reading books can help take us away from cell phones and other things from which we need a break. Books can be bad for us too, but they aren’t constantly jumping off the shelf screaming for our attention like a cell phone is designed to do. Good books can focus our minds and hearts on truths that are life giving. They can help us meditate deeply on things that help us discover who we are, why we are here, what our beliefs are grounded in, how we can grow as spiritual beings, and how we can connect in meaningful and lasting ways to those around us.

And so, this issue is dedicated to some good books—particularly to good books that draw you closer to Christ and teach you more about Him and His ways. Pick one or two or three and then borrow or buy them as one means of sustaining your soul in this busy and burdened age. Find a comfortable spot and set aside time solely for reading—even if that reading is a book on your electronic device.