My Review of "The Air I Breathe"

Louie Giglio's The Air I Breathe: Worship as a Way of Life is a deceptively small book packed with insights. Perhaps his most important, though, will also seem his simplest: Everyone worships something or someone, because God has designed us all with the drive to worship. We only have to study how we spend our time, energy, affection and money to discover the current object of our worship. Thinking about worship in light of the book's simplest definition -- "our response to what we value most" -- is both eye-opening and thought-provoking.

The Air I Breathe then proceeds to urge readers to devote their worship to God (the only One who's worthy of it) and to make worship a way of life rather than just something they do in church. Giglio's beautiful writing -- which is full of simple, yet profound statements and fresh energy -- successfully motivates readers to ponder his points. But as persuasive as his narrative is, it lacks sufficient examples to illustrate its principles. The few real-life stories that Giglio does relate fit in well, but unfortunately, the book's anecdotal examples are few and far between. Sure, the narrative is vibrant, but there's nothing like good stories to truly make text come alive.

In that way, the book fails at its subtitle: Worship hardly seems a "way of life" and more like an intellectual exercise. While Giglio packs his writing with insights, those insights hardly seem translatable into real living.

That makes The Air I Breathe less appealing, and in the end left me feeling less changed.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

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