Last week I dropped off my daughter at her dance studio and noticed on the table in the waiting area a book that’s climbed the bestseller lists in recent months: Heaven Is for Real, by Todd Burpo.

This week’s blog was written by senior editor Beth Adams, who recently worked on a book we think you’ll enjoy.

Today is a normal day. I can hear the sound of one daughter brushing her teeth; the clink of a spoon against a cereal bowl by another daughter; the cat meowing, waiting for her morning meal. My wife is checking her email and preparing for her day as an elementary school music teacher. I’m getting ready for work, doing my ironing.

I work for the division of Guideposts that publishes books, and let me tell you, things never hold still here. It’s my job to help select and create devotionals, nonfiction and fiction that inspires, guides and helps you grow.

The faith and values we affirm in these materials are timeless, just as timeless as the Bibles we sometimes publish, but how we go about communicating them never seems to stop changing. The world we live in never stops changing—and neither do the ways we reach out to people with our publications.

Last week I visited the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Discovery Center in Times Square, not far from the Guideposts offices here in New York. The Dead Sea Scrolls in Times Square? What a vivid contrast!

Christmas is for celebrating the birth of Christ. It makes me think of hope and new beginnings, even in turbulent times. It causes me to ponder what it’s like to receive an unconditional gift of love even though I might not feel worthy.

When I was in college I took a course in religion that changed my life. It was an introductory survey of some of the most heralded Christian theologians both ancient and modern: Augustine, Aquinas and Luther on to Buber (actually Jewish), Barth and Tillich.

Not your everyday household names, but people whose thoughts about faith and belief were to me less about argumentative treatises and more about beauty, poetry, honesty and the courage to simply just “be” in the presence of God.

As an editor, I’m always impressed at the way certain books of hope and faith stay on bestseller lists through the years.

I’m not talking about bestseller lists like The New York Times or USA Today. The titles on those lists hang around for weeks, months and sometimes years. But those books don’t last near as long as some of the ones you find on lists for religious works, such as Mere Christianity, The Five Love Languages, Through Gates of Splendor and My Utmost for His Highest.

I recently rediscovered some children’s cassette tapes in the attic of my house and thought that it’s time to get rid of them. Our kids are both teenagers now.

Instead of throwing them out or finding someone to give them to (who still uses cassettes?), I grabbed my 13-year-old daughter’s old player and popped in a tape.

A few weeks back, I talked about the robust faith I discovered in my recent reading of the inspirational true story The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson. Now that I have finished the book, I’d like to pull out one more concept: the art of being a Christian.