There are three books that I think every young man should read. They inspire character and teach what it's like to become a man. In no particular order, they are:

1. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay (also a movie) (the young man should be at least a teenager)
2. That Printer of Udells by Harold Bell Wright
3. Kipling's Stories for Boys by Rudyard Kipling (a large collection of stories, the most important, in my mind being: The Drums of the Fore and Aft, Wee Willie Winkie, Baa Baa, Black Sheep, and To Be Filed for Reference. You can buy a smaller book called, Kipling's Boy Stories that has 3 of the 4 but doesn't include To Be Filed for Reference. Luckily, Google has digitized To Be Filed for Reference if you search for it at print.google.com)

If there was a fourth, and I think there should be, it would be "As a Man Thinketh." You know that I created mp3s of me reading that if you would like to download them here.

So, if you're buying Christmas gifts for a young man, you may want to consider those three or four books. If your young man is really young, you may consider getting just Kipling's Stories for Boys and another book called, "The Dangerous Book for Boys." That last one includes lots of fun things and activities they can do, but wasn't mean to necessarily inspire manhood except for the acquisition of certain skills. Your comments on any of these are welcome.

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Not too long after the tech bubble burst, we started hearing many say that it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Turns out that bubbles are necessary for the economy. During a bubble growth, investors and eager to pour money into projects. When the bubble bursts, the investors hold back, skeptical of where they'll put their money. However, the investments from the bubble are not without value even though the investors may have felt like they bottomed out. Many of those investments provide the infrastructure for future growth. Basically, without bubbles, we wouldn't have a lot of the growth that we have a few years afterwards.

I believe that the same thing can happen with relationships or anything else that the Lord might be preparing us for. We might have one bubble of a relationship, which will burst and we will think was a complete failure, especially looking at it from the standpoint of an investor. However, that relationship may have laid the infrastructure for future relationships that the Lord is preparing us for. So, don't be afraid of bubble relationships either. Just be afraid of getting married at the top of the bubble, right before it bursts.

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