Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Happy Birthday, Nathan and LBD!

I have a hard time believing my grandson Nathan is a year old. But then I also have a hard time believing my book is a year old. There is a connection: Nathan was born a few days before his due date and right in the middle of my final edit of the publisher's copy than was going to print about a week later! Thus Living Between the Ditches: When God Makes No Sense and Nathan Andrew Hassler will forever be linked in my memory. Nathan is now walking, running, sliding, climbing ... and the book is taking baby steps toward its audience. But that's what you get with self-publishing—a lot of control but not much marketing!

This blog has been my diary of sorts, charting the book's birth, story line, and character development. I've had time to reflect more on my journey into the paradox of "We can know God. God is mystery." I'm more firmly convinced than ever that you can't have one truth without the other.

I recently read a brief testimony by Ravi Zacharias, well-known author and biblical apologist from India. He became a Christian through hearing one sentence spoken by Jesus and recorded in the Bible. When he heard Jesus' words, he knew he had heard Truth (Jn. 8:32). I'm continually amazed that people all over the world hear a sliver of the gospel message and have a transformational experience with God. For example, a Vietnamese Christian became a believer because he was cleaning toilets in a prison. One of the guards had received a Bible and was tearing out its pages, using each one as toilet paper. Can God be known? Yes! Does He use every means available? Yes! Our story is God reaching down to us, not our searching for and then "discovering" God.

I'm also continually amazed by God's mystery. This morning I was reading a devotion by Selwyn Hughes, a British author and teacher who wrote a daily devotion, "Every Day with Jesus," which encircled the globe during his lifetime. Hughes encouraged readers to dig deeper into God's character because one could never penetrate the depths of it. I had the privilege of meeting Selwyn toward the end of his life as he battled cancer, never once asking, "Why me?" I quoted Job 2:10 in my book: "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" Can God ever give us enough that we're satisfied with His bountiful supply?

That was Layton's question (the main character in the book, except, of course for God!) and ours as well. Can we allow the ways of God to be unfathomable and yet know Him intimately? The secret of living between the ditches.