Book Awards and the Gospel

Hey, everyone!  In case you missed it, Giants: Legends and Lore of Goliaths, is the recipient of a Gold Medal in the 2016 Moonbeam Awards!  Since I wasn't aware that it was even being submitted for consideration, this is a pretty amazing thing, and caught me completely off-guard.  But I sort of feel the need to say something about it, lest I get distracted by what matters.

First, I didn't win the award, the book did, and the book was most definitely a collaborative effort.  Bill Looney did the absolutely fantastic illustrations, which - in my opinion - make the book.  But the editors over at Masterbooks also had to take my text, take Bill's illustrations, and work them into a coherent, visually-stunning, and interactive work of art.  I only wrote the text, and, truthfully, an illustrated pop-up book without illustrations or pop-up elements is . . . boring.  Really, really boring.  So the book won, and it only did so because of the work of several other individuals.  I've received lots of congratulations so far - and thank you for those - but please stop, as my part was very, very small.

Secondly, the whole point of writing the book was not to win an award, but to introduce people to the mind-blowing concept that the Bible is not simply a book of fairy tales that has no historical significance.  Like Flood Legends before it, Giants is my way of pointing people to the Bible and reminding them that faith - true, Biblical faith - is never blind.  We have a mighty God, an incredible God, a loving, beautiful, awesome God Who has revealed Himself throughout history as recorded in the pages of the Bible.  So when I say the Bible can be trusted, what I'm really saying is that the God of the Bible can be trusted, and, indeed, demands our trust.  He wants us to know Him on a deeply intimate level, and trusting Him is the only way to begin doing that.  Now, this award will, hopefully, make the book more available to people who would not normally come across this sort of thing.  That's my prayer, but the motivation remains the same:  an avenue for sharing the Gospel.

I'm humbled and proud that Giants actually won an award and for the part I played in it, I'm excited to see what that does for the distribution of it, but at the end of the day, it's ultimately up to you, the readers, to make this thing work.  You need to pass out the copies you own, you need to discuss these ideas with your friends and families, you need to open your Bibles with them, and you need to do what each and every believer is called to do:  go into all the world and preach the Gospel.  Besides, how cool is the topic of giants, anyway?  It's a good door to go through, so let's go through it together.