Well, the big announcement this month is that the writing of Obeying the Gospel has been finished!
I can’t begin to tell you what a relief it is to complete the writing of these pages. With great joy, I wrote the first page on January 1, 2017, on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Meridian, Mississippi. That day was one of the two or three happiest days of my life. But 170,000 words later, I am very tired and emotionally spent. The three-and-a-half years that it took to complete these pages have been an ordeal. I knew that it would be hard, since the nature of this particular book required a unique mental focus and emotional concern. But I had no idea just how hard it was going to be. There were many points along the way when I felt that I would never live to see the project completed. So, suffice it to say that I am relieved — and most grateful to God — that Obeying the Gospel has, in fact, been able to be finished.
But perhaps “finished” is not quite the word that should be used at this point. Neither of my editors are finished with the arduous work of plowing through these densely packed pages. And there is much, much work that I will have to do before the end of the year when the book is scheduled for publication. I won’t bore you with the details of the post-production process on a book of this magnitude, but it involves a huge amount of work. Please pray that I will have the strength to finish the entire process and get the book in your hands later this year.
As I have frequently mentioned, there will also be a website called AreYouaChristian.com that will go live at the same time that Obeying the Gospel is published. Writing the content for this website will take hundreds of hours of work over the next 4–5 months, but I believe it will be an evangelistic tool that will be a helpful complement to the book.
Both Obeying the Gospel and AreYouaChristian.com have been on my mind and heart for a very long time, almost so long that I can’t remember when I wasn’t dreaming about them, brainstorming ideas for them, and planning the actual work. Not many people get to experience what it’s like to plan a big work for this long, work on it for this many years, and then finally see it in completed form. It is a thrill that gives me goosebumps even to talk about it just now.
I was reading Psalm 127 just this morning, where Solomon tells us that “unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” If Obeying the Gospel displeases the Lord, He will ultimately bring it to naught. He will defeat it and strike it down, as rightfully He should. But I hope that He will not be displeased. I hope that He will, despite its errors, use this book to reach a lost soul or two with the gospel. I take great comfort in knowing that He specializes in using flawed (and from His perspective, extremely immature) material to accomplish His purposes.
Lord willing, I plan to publish Obeying the Gospel and AreYouaChristian.com on November 26, Thanksgiving Day. If that can happen somehow, the smoked turkey (you are bringing that again this year, aren’t you, Phil?) and cornbread dressing will taste mighty good to this weary writer.
Thank you for your patience, your grace, your forgiveness, and your financial support throughout a turbulent time. If these tools and resources end up being useful to you in your part of the Lord’s work, I hope you can feel that your investment in my support was worth the perseverance that it required of you for so long. May God bless you.
Gary Henry — WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
P. S. Dee, to reward myself, I’ve purchased the full library edition of the OED. Nobody but you would understand. 🙂
