I Don't Read Romance Novels ... Except This One.

“Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.” –Charles H. Spurgeon

It’s not uncommon for me to pick up a good book and practically cease living the rest of my life until I finish it. From beginning to end I am engrossed by the characters, the plot, the conflicts; and the rest of my life reflects that. If I’m reading a mystery novel, I’ll spend my days lurking around every corner in search of suspicious characters. If I’m reading an action story, I’ll spend my days punching, kicking, and karate-chopping the air as if I were in the midst of a battle myself.  I don’t just read books, you see, but I dive into them head first and live my life in the world of its pages. This past year I have visited a number of great books, but I was captivated most by the Bible.

In April of 2014, I began reading the Bible from page one. I don’t know what inspired me (likely the Holy Spirit), but I was determined to read the entire Bible from cover to cover. I thought it would be a long and arduous task, and I didn’t expect to be enthralled the same way I usually am by books. It turned out, however, that I was more fascinated by the Bible than I could even explain. I was hooked, and with every page I was convinced that it was the best story I had ever read.

By early December I had finished the entire book, and with it I had gained a new perspective and almost, it seemed, a new life. I had learned so much in those eight months that changed me- it was partly because I had begun to know the Bible, but it was mostly because I had begun to know God. Yes, it was beneficial to read the entirety of the story I grew up learning bits and pieces of, but what moved me most was the God I met in those pages. It seems too great of an undertaking to share every way in which God and His character stirred me as I read through the Bible, but I can’t keep myself from sharing just a few.

First things first: When you read the Bible like a book, from the first page to the last, you realize that it truly is a story. It’s not just any story, either- its’ a love story.

Growing up in the church, one becomes familiar with a myriad of different “Christianese” expressions. Phrases like sanctification, backsliding, and the holy trinity seem normal and appropriate in regular conversation. One of the more popular Christian-isms is referring to the Bible as a “love letter” or as God’s “love story.” I heard this one often, but never quite understood it. Never, that is, until I actually read it. The Bible is indeed a story, and each page is covered with God’s love.

Christians see Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as a manifestation of God’s love for us. We believe, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him would not perish, but would have eternal life” (John 3:16). I grew up hearing this. I grew up believing it. I didn’t grow up truly getting it. I did, in a sense, but I didn’t. I understood that Jesus gave His life to save the world, but I didn’t understand the world that Jesus gave His life for. I didn’t grasp the depravity or the wickedness that consumed the world. I didn’t know how continually God called His people back to Himself and they turned the other way. 

It wasn’t until I understood the iniquity of the world that I understood the love of God.

The crucifixion of Jesus becomes more powerful when you realize that He was coming to save a world of people that wanted to live without Him. They were people who betrayed, disobeyed, and replaced Him. Even His own people, the Israelites, lived their lives apart from Him. This was the world He came to die for.

“But God commends His own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Knowing such changes the way you view the crucifixion, though it is not only recognizing this truth but studying it for yourself that brings greater impact to the life and death of Christ. Understanding comes as you spend days and months reading the multitude of times God’s people turned away from Him. It comes as you read God’s kind response to His people in those moments, calling them back to Himself in love. It comes as you become disheartened yourself at the unwillingness of the world to change its ways and walk with God.  

Greater understanding of the hate inevitably brings greater understanding of the love.

I know I will spend the rest of my life uncovering new depths of God’s love (for it is so vast I shall never comprehend it entirely on this side of heaven), but the journey I took through the Bible opened my eyes immensely. Something amazing happened in my heart as I read 1,800 pages of betrayal and depravity and I, shocked and incredulous, could ask, “Even still, God? Still you loved and still you desired to save?” And He would remind me of the promise of Jesus and whisper, “Yes, even still.”   

Second things second: When you read a book like the Bible, from the first page to the last, you realize how abundant God’s patience and mercy must be, because you yourself become frustrated with its characters.

I remember clearly reading the book of Judges (the seventh book of the Bible). I recall where I was (on my living room floor), how long it took me to read it (one sitting), and which emotions the book provoked (anger and impatience).  Judges is a book all about Judges-go figure. Basically, it is written about a 300-year span of time when different judges were appointed to lead Israel. In this time, Israel continually disobeys God and then begs Him for deliverance when things go bad. This book felt to me like a nauseating roller coaster. Ironically, I couldn’t put the Bible down until I finished it, but I felt sick by the time I did.

So, like I said, this book made me feel impatient and angry. Let me summarize it for you: God tells the Israelites to do one thing, and instead they do another. God becomes angry in return, removes His protective hand from them, and they are delivered to their enemies and become slaves. The Israelites aren’t so fond of this new lifestyle, and they cry out to God to be rescued. God indeed saves them, charges them not to do what He commanded at first, and because they apparently didn’t learn their lesson the first time, the cycle starts all over again.

This happens so many times in the book of Judges that I lost count. I did, however, become so angry at one point that I verbally erupted, “Why can’t you just listen?! Seriously, are we going through this again?!” I couldn’t take it anymore, and part of me was irritated that God kept rescuing these people who kept going back to what they just apologized for. Just do what He says, I thought. Was it really that difficult?

And then I was humbled.

As angry as I was with the Israelites, I realize I do the same thing all the time. I lie, I idolize, I disobey, and when things start going badly because of it I cry to God asking for forgiveness and deliverance. Then, sadly, I’ll slip up in the same way a week later. Thankfully, just as God dealt with the Israelites, He deals with me: with incredible patience and mercy. It was in my time of reading this book that I got the greatest revelation of God’s character in regards to patience and mercy. As I reached my limit of patience with the Israelites, God’s seemed limitless. Though they continually stumbled, He continually rescued.

God is patient and full of mercy. Never before has the meaning of that been so evidently true to me.

I don’t know how to describe to you the glorious impact that reading the Bible cover-to-cover had on my life, but I can assure you it changed me tremendously. It even changed the way I thought about Christmas (which you can read about here). I could write for days about the things I learned and the ways in which I met the Lord, but I don’t want to. What I really want is for you to experience it. Don’t take my word for it that God is full of love, patience, and mercy. Open the book and read it for yourself. It’s all in there, I promise.  

I Don't Have What It Takes

“I don’t think I have what it takes,” I thought to myself. My doubts became stronger with each turn of the page as I read the inspiring story about an adventurous, self-sacrificing missionary in Uganda. I picked up the book to encourage and excite myself about the calling I thought was mine (just as I had done with the handful of missionary books I’d read before), yet fear and doubt had been consuming me instead. For years now I had been convinced being a missionary overseas was my future, my purpose, but suddenly I wasn't so sure.

I've always thought of mission work with enthusiasm and passion, eagerly anticipating the places I could go, the places I could work, and the people I could serve. I fantasized about bringing the gospel into villages and remote areas, and dreamt about the transformation Jesus could bring. I suppose I always thought about the good things, the happy things- the things that I loved.

Though they sometimes crossed my mind, the difficult aspects never seemed to penetrate the idealistic picture of mission work I had in my head. Even when I went to the Dominican Republic for three weeks in June, I easily embraced what I assumed to be the most difficult part of living in a third-world country: showering with a bucket and hosting incessantly dirty feet. I didn't care that I slept on the floor or ate plantains for every meal or had electricity only a couple hours out of the day. Heck, I didn't even care that the toilet was many times just a hole in the ground. In my heart was the desire to be a missionary overseas, and I wanted everything that came with it.

I just didn't realize what “everything” is.

I didn't think about the loneliness in being unable to communicate in another language. I didn't think about simple comforts like having twenty different types of bread to choose from or “vegging” out on TV after an exhausting day. I didn't think about missing family holidays. I didn't think. I didn't think. I didn't think.

Now, all of this thinking (or lack thereof) has seemed to cement a single thought in my mind: I’m not so sure I have what it takes.

Now more than ever I understand what it is like to be apart from my family: excruciating. Or what it is like to be amongst entirely new people: lonely. Or what it is like to serve others when the only thing I really want to do is be left alone to read a book: incredibly challenging. I now understand these things that have broken and tested my heart, and I am afraid that I will break under greater pressure- a pressure that inevitably awaits me on the mission field.

As I ponder these things I question my ability to ever be a missionary, and I realize I simply will never have what it takes. But that’s okay. It’s freeing, actually. I will never have the grace, courage, or unconditional love for others that being a missionary requires. I just won’t, I’m certain, but I don’t think that means I’m not meant to be one- it means I need Jesus.

To think I’d ever have what it takes in my own strength is, I believe, to think much too highly of myself and of God much too little. If I truly believe God is my strength and my peace, my grace and my all, then I ought to readily admit without Him I’d be powerless, restless, and graceless. Without Him, I’d be a terrible missionary.

I do believe God has gifted me with character traits that would complement a missionary lifestyle (i.e. the fact that I don’t mind sleeping on the floor or that I enjoy physical labor), but I am certain I could not do it without Him. Why? Because it is only God that can comfort a lonely heart who is apart from everyone they've ever loved. It is only He who can give the strength to wake up and serve another day when it is the last thing you want to do. It is only He who can make the impossible possible.

So no, I don’t believe I’ll ever have what it takes to be a missionary, but I do know I will always have God, and God will always be enough.

“Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5 (emphasis added).