I have to be honest - I have a love-hate affair with the Bible. Even the word sounds trite to me, like something that I should have left in my childhood along with action figures and lollipops and little league. To read the Bible and take it seriously puts you in the same group as television preachers, arrogant politicians, and other generally angry, somewhat crazy people. I mean, does anybody actually believe this stuff? All this about talking donkeys, giant slayers, worldwide floods, man-eating fish, and lunch for thousands? That's how I feel about it in my more honest moments, and I wager that I'm not alone.

It's sad what we've done to the Bible, really. We've turned it into make-believe and fairy tales, and spend the rest of our lives trying to convince ourselves that it's true. I sometimes wonder if the ones who shout the loudest are the ones who, deep down, are the most unsettled about the whole affair, as though their very faith depends on some teetering tower of Jenga blocks, ready to topple with one ill-timed movement. I'm not sure why this is, really - why it is that we reduce this incredible story to little more than children's fare, although it must be said that the children more often than not show the greater wisdom in their astonishment. For amazing it is and remains so in spite of all our efforts to reduce it to something smaller and more manageable, something that fits the target market and makes nice slogans and bumper stickers and t-shirts. After all, if it isn't on a t-shirt, it's probably not real.

I think when you start to get the story of scripture, when the Bible starts to become real for you, you get the sense that this is not at all the stuff of kid's stories. It's dark and gritty, like something that should be put on the top shelf to keep away from little eyes. It is quite possibly the most realistic piece of literature that I have ever read, at least in the sense of naming who we are and what we have become. The tragedy is at times almost too much to bear, the descent from grand design and noble purpose into corruption and death. But at the same time it holds out this impossible hope that never seems to fail, even when the story reaches its darkest points - the darkness cannot triumph.

And this, after all, is the point. The Bible would be the most hated book on earth if it were not for the impossible hope that it holds, because it is the one book that names evil truly, giving it the name of every person who has ever lived. And yet, in spite of this, it never forgets our discarded nobility, and when the story seems most dark, the very One who gave life to all things comes to do so again at the cost of his own life, only to prove that hope is not after all impossible, merely improbable, which is what he seems to do best.

Perhaps if we were to quit trying to prove that scripture is true, and instead began to live as if it were, the arguments would go away. Or more probably, they would continue, only with more credibility and less anger. Perhaps if we found the wonder and amazement that are required to trust in this improbable hope caught in this impossible story, we would begin to understand that the arguments aren't really the point anyway. Instead, we would know that the point is to come to know the Storyteller, to follow Him and to be caught up in the story that He continues to tell, to weave our tales with His and to come to the place where we can tell our stories as a part of the larger epic. I think that when this begins to happen to us, when the Bible begins to come true for us, everything else begins to change as well - and we begin to ask why we never saw things this way before.