Stories of My Redeemer's Voice

How This Decision Changed the Course of My Life

I once heard a pastor I respected—maybe more than any other pastor growing up—say, “It takes five years of reading your Bible every day to truly know God.”

So what did I do?

I read my Bible every day for five years.

And the anger inside me kept building.
No matter what I did.

You see, I followed every rule to the best of my ability. I built my life around formulas, restrictions, and the constant question: What more can I do? And I was good at it. On the surface, if anyone qualified based on doing everything the church had told me to do to please God—to move God, to unlock the desires of my heart—I was on that list.

Yet I lived broke, busted, disgusted, and guilty.

Guilty because if God hadn’t moved, then surely there was something inside of me that didn’t please Him.

All along, Abba kept whispering to me, “It’s not about you.”
And I pushed that voice down, convinced it was the devil trying to steal my soul.

Until the day I had enough.

That was the day I opened my heart to that voice.

I pushed the Bible aside—not because I didn’t love God, but because the Bible had become a chore list. A chore list I could never make work. It felt like a magic spell missing one ingredient—an ingredient I was powerless to identify.

I grieved losing the “God” I had been taught to believe in—the God of demands and expectations. I grieved the loss of structure. I had always been told how to act, how to speak, how to behave, or I wouldn’t be good enough for the One who died for me.

Most days, I lived sick to my stomach.

I was in mourning.
A deep, guttural mourning—one I couldn’t talk to most people in my life about. No one would understand.

And yet, in the grieving, I was finally free.

Free to yell.
Free to scream.
Free to be angry with Abba.

And do you know what?

He didn’t mind.
Not one bit.

“Keep screaming at Me. I’m here for you. Just don’t walk away. Don’t stop asking questions. Don’t stop talking to Me.”

So simple.

For the first time, I could say whatever was on my mind, anytime I wanted, without fear of an angry God.

I was no longer afraid of the god who only provided for his children after they gave ten percent of their money.
I was no longer afraid of the god who withheld mercy unless I kept the Ten Commandments perfectly.
I was no longer afraid of the god who wouldn’t help me unless I said everything just right—because after all, life and death are in the power of the tongue.

Every day since I quit reading my Bible, I heard Abba’s voice say,
“It’s not about you. It’s about Jesus.”

I believed that with my whole heart.
My heart screamed it at me every day.

But it was only this week that my heart finally understood it.

Because I didn’t quit reading my Bible in the way you might be thinking.

Do I read it every day? No.
But when I read it now, I no longer read it as a guidebook for my life—a how-to manual, a rulebook, a list of do’s and don’ts.

I read it the way it was always meant to be read.

As the words of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit telling me who They are and what They have done.

So how do you read the Bible this way?

Every time you come across a verse that tempts you to act, to fix yourself, to take control, to make something happen—every time you feel the pull to turn Scripture into a formula—you pause. You shake off that instinct and look closer.

Jesus is the One who acts.
He is the One who makes something happen.
He is the One who carries your life.

If there were a formula in Scripture that could fix us, Jesus would never have needed to suffer on the cross. He could have stayed in heaven, seated beside the Father.

Do you remember the play Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames?

Do you remember Jesus coming down the stairs after someone died, while the actors listed all the things they did that made them worthy of heaven? And those carried off to hell made the same cries:

“I did this.”
“I believed this.”
“I, I, I.”

Not one of them ever looked at Jesus and said,
“The only reason I get to climb those stairs is because of You.”

That revelation this week opened my eyes to something I had already known in my heart.

It’s never I.
It’s always Jesus.

Not just to get into heaven—but when reading the Bible, when praying, when making decisions, when living life at all.

It’s not how I do something.
It’s not what I say.
It’s not how I move.
It’s not how good I am.

There is no I in His mercy.
No I in His grace.
No I in His love.

He is love.
That’s it.
Period.

We need to stop adding to the verse:

“God is love… if I do.”
“God is love… when I do.”
“God is love… how I do.”
“God is love… if I say.”
“God is love… if I feel.”

What about faith?
Don’t I need more faith?

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”

So what is faith?

Faith is Jesus.
Jesus comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of God.

I challenge you to open your Bible and look for only one thing:
Jesus—and what He has done.

I’m making my way through my favorite stories now, searching for Him.

Come back for more, and I’ll show you how Joseph is a picture of Jesus—not a blueprint for how we’re supposed to live.

Remember:

There is only one Jesus.
And you are not Him.