June 1st, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

I think my jaw hung open for an entire semester as I sat in Dr. Miller’s Old Testament Survey at Cedarville University {actually, Cedarville College at that point.}

I had been saved at four years old. I had grown up in an amazing Christian family with family devotions every night, church three times a week, years of Christian camps and retreats, and 10 years of Christian school.

And I had never seen the Bible like this.

It was like I had been looking at one of those “Magic Eye” pictures – staring and staring and staring at it for years, trying to comprehend, and then POW! All of a sudden instead of tiny individual fragments I saw the Bigger Picture. The one overarching story that tied all of the tiny pieces together stood out to me like a three-dimensional image, and it was breathtaking. The bigness of my God was breathtaking.

My understanding of God grew. My hunger for the Bible grew. My faith grew.

I remember riding in the car with my dad when he had picked me up from my dorm to take me to dinner while in the area on business. I was passionately telling him about everything I was learning; I remember turning to him and saying, “Why didn’t anyone teach me this?!” He told me something that changed my life – “because no one taught us.”

The next fall I changed my major to Bible. I wanted everyone to see the the larger picture of what God was doing in Scripture, the story that tied all the others together. I wasn’t sure what I would do… write curriculum? Teach? Speak? Work in a church? Who knows – but God had tapped my heart and I wanted the Bible to come alive for others as it had for me.

Years later – my life is small. But God has given me opportunity to write, teach, speak after all.

So, this summer, we will dive in. Three months, 66 books, one story, one amazing God. We won’t cover it all – every tiny piece is inspired and important, but for this series, we will focus on the larger picture – that “Magic Eye” picture that pops out if we see the Bible as a whole. It is my prayer that this series will springboard you into deeper study of your own – a deeper thirst for Scripture, a thirst to know more of our great God, a strengthened faith from seeing the broad strokes of his pen in this stunningly beautiful plan He has written for us to read.

So, beginning Monday, June 6th, we will spend a summer in the Story! I hope you’ll plan to join us, and perhaps invite others to join us on facebook or twitter! You can follow along easily by subscribing to this blog by email or in an RSS reader!

Ready?