The author’s testimony is about a journey to discover Faith, to love God, to know God and His Son Jesus. How do you really love God? How do you really “know” that Jesus is alive and real? It takes faith.
Over the 43 years since accepting Christ, the author has wrestled with God, but always felt the presence of the Lord tugging him back home. There was a time when he figured that he could still have a relationship with God and not attend church. There were other times when he was on fire for the Lord. And then other times he would fall away again only to be called back by the Lord yet again. Through it all the author questioned and tried everything only to come back to the Lord every time. Thank you, Jesus, for loving us that much.
The author was raised in dysfunctional family that moved a lot. He went to 12 schools through high school including 3 kindergartens and 4 high schools. His family life deteriorated to the point that when he was 13 no one cared if he came home. His stepmom took him to church where he accepted the Lord as his Savior on a teen trip to present a play at different Idaho churches. Those were exciting times, living out this new life in the Lord.
During all these years, the author gained a love for the Bible. It is God’s tech manual. As a retired Army Warrant Officer, technical manuals were an important part of the job. He was required to know them completely. He has taken this approach to the Bible.
The second aspect of being in the military is that he attended many churches. Moving every 2 ½ years gave him a perspective on churches that few others have gained. He received and witnessed many different methods and styles of teaching the Bible and applied these two experiences to the writing of this book.
Jesus is the author’s King, Lord, Savior and Redeemer. He is his Love.
“Why is Christianity So Hard?” was written for those that are struggling with faith because it was not what they expected. They found faith to be too hard, contradictory, or confusing. Many expect it to be like we had it in the Garden of Eden. There is an expectation that Christianity was going to be a blissful easy life. When they find out that we live in a fallen world, then they quit without fully understanding why.
Following Christ and being His disciple is hard until you figure out to yield to the Holy Spirit, let Christ live through you and rest in God’s love. We need to get ourselves out of the way and let the grace of God work through us. It is only by the Grace of God that we can do anything. Which is, in and of itself, difficult (at least for me) to do consistently with every decision.
I want to encourage folks that having faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to live your life.
My favorite part of writing, “Why is Christianity So Hard?” was the journey of discovering and knowing God. I started writing the book as therapy. Writing it down helped me formalize my thoughts and solidify what I believed. Writing is a release for me. It also helps me remember why I believe what I believe. It helps my faith. Readers will benefit from my search to know God.
In the book, I added personal application sections to describe how that section impacted my life or how I can apply it to my life. For example, the memorial stones section is where I talked about making memories of when God was faithful in your life. Where God answered a prayer. There was no other explanation of the how something came to be in your life. So, just like the Israelites when they crossed the Jordan, God told them to take 12 big stones from the middle of the river and make a memorial of God faithfulness. I believe that we need to do the same thing today. It does not need to be 12 big stones, but it needs to be something that will remind you of God’s faithfulness. That way when your faith starts to waiver, you can look back on God’s faithfulness and know that He will be faithful again.
My heart is that readers find this book encouraging and leads them into a richer and deeper love of Jesus Christ.
Readers will benefit from a refreshing and insightful that organizes over 600 Bible references throughout the book to let the Word of God sink into their hearts and minds to answer some of the harder questions about faith.
I pray that the readers find this book encouraging to help them in their walk with Jesus. I want them to know they can have and keep the faith. I want to help them be a disciple of Jesus Christ.