As a writer, you would think I would be working on an MA in Journalism . Instead, I found myself at Bethel Seminary, several years ago, enrolled as a MATS major with an emphasis on Biblical Studies.

Why this drawing to attend Bethel?  I was pondering the matter one afternoon and “just happened” to pull a book from my library shelf called A Thirst for God  by Dr. Sherwood Wirt.  Woody, as we called him, founded the San Diego Christian Writer’s Guild, of which I’ve been a member since around 1978.  The book had been autographed to me 25 years before and is a treatise on the 42nd Psalm which is one of my favorites…  “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God…”  Was it a panting after God, a thirst for a deeper walk, a more intimate knowledge of Him that drew me?

I know the Bible, or thought I did.  It was eye-opening to get my score for the Bible proficiency exam and realize it was barely a passing grade!  In humility, I had to acknowledge there was a great deal to learn.  It was then imperative in considering this lack that a way be found to remedy it.  Yes, I can quote verses, but realized it was more difficult to pinpoint the chapter and verse, the address, so to speak.

As I read Woody’s book, two statements reached out to me,

“When we approach the Bible as a true scientist approaches a natural subject—humbly, with a desire to let it teach him—we will learn that God is not only truth, but also beauty, and goodness and above all, love.”

(to be continued)