A God's Eye View

Is it really "brief" if it's four parts long?

The time seems right. It needs to come off the virtual shelf. My kids are going through it now in their morning study time, and I'm seeing ever more flaws. It's not perfect. But its also nothing like any other study I've seen. Maybe it's too involved and challenging. But maybe there are those who are ready to rise to that challenge. I'd love to lead more groups through it. But how do you find people interested, especially in suburbs where its so hard to meet anyone and this isn't for just anyone? Yet I sense its time. Time to launch.

Life happens. Households need to be moved. New locations require time to discover and settle into. New friendships must be formed. Children grow and dive into activities. Travels must be taken. Volunteer opportunities arise. Experience of failure and rejection invade from every side. And uncertainty pervades while we live in a world of foreign languages and short attention spans. The book sits on a virtual shelf, one tiny item on a very long to-do list. And God seems to be silent regarding it.

In 2010, shortly after the birth of our first child, I followed my husband into the one-on-one discipleship world. Having completed Camper in Leadership Training (CILT) at camp then seminary at Columbia International University, I invited a gal to meet with me weekly for a year. Fifteen months later, we completed an intentional course, including an intensive journey through the whole Bible. Nine years and a handful of mentorships later, Covid hit and from Japan, I led a few friends through this journey as a video-meeting-based Bible study. With their invaluable help, the book began to solidify into its present shape.

"Why do you care about the Bible?" Lisa panted as we jogged between rice paddies outside our small, northern Japanese town of Misawa in 2000. She knew that I went to Officer Christian Fellowship and that sometimes I mentioned what Jesus had done in the twists and turns of my life and how the Bible felt like my lifeline even though much of it was mysterious to me.

"What should we study?" one of the ladies in our varied small group asked? "How about the Bible - all of it?" I shot back without thinking. So we did. And thus began the foundations of this book.

You may not have known it from looking at my life, but of all the influences vying for my young adult attentions, the Bible owned my first moments every day. Camp had ingrained that in me. What did I read? The Daily Bread devotional for years. But this was before they printed the verses in it. And I'd end up reading far more Bible than devotional. I felt as if parched and guzzling water. "It's alive!" I thought one day as what I read spoke directly into my choices for that day. The Word clearly has power. But what all was in it? I knew only generally and was content...until...