Author, Author

My other godson, The Atheist, who's twenty-eight, told me the other day, "Figuring out God should be an easy thing. I mean, you only have two books to study (the Old Testament and New Testament), so how hard could it be?" I am rarely struck speechless but I was then. I mean, such a statement is akin to saying "Since there are only three primary colors, it should be easy to paint like Monet."

Be it the OT or the NT, anyone who has read the bible knows that the Word of God is a living thing. It evolves and reveals on so many levels that you can easily lose count. There are so many things to unpack, concepts to analyze and mysteries waiting to be revealed that a person who lived a thousand years could die still not understanding it all. But that's not the only reason you read it anyway.

The number of books is not what matters, as much as it is that you simply take the time to read them. There's not a preacher, pastor or priest in the world who hasn't told his flock to read the bible. Is this because they're so wise? No. It's because they're wise enough to know the limitations of their own wisdom. One can preach a message every Sunday and still not accomplish the amount of work that God alone does in a person's single reading of even one part of the bible. For me it was Philippians 4:4-7. I have a friend who cites Isiah 40:30-31. Another was impacted for the first time by Proverbs 3:6 and yet another Romans 8:28. Lives forever changed by mere sentences.

The Atheist has his textbooks. He has Darwin. He has things to study and learn. But here's the important difference: he has read nothing that studies and learns him. The Word, as authored by God, does exactly that. You may not like what it discovers in you, and I often struggle with what it reveals, but I can imagine no greater book than the one that tells you your very own story.