I was hiking in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee when I was a teenager. While on the trail, I ran into an older couple (that was probably my current age). The man was immediately likable and amazingly personable. Within minutes, he asked, “Can I give you a gift?” His wife rolled her eyes and said, “He gives these away everywhere we go.” He reached into his backpack and removed a small paperback book. I took it, said, “Thank you,” and never saw him again. However, I still have the book and remember its content today, almost thirty years later. I’ve thought several times since then, I would really enjoy having a book to share with others.

Fast forward about twenty years, and I began volunteering as a chaplain at Serving You Ministries in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, at this point, I need to make a disclaimer: I absolutely love and revere the bible. I would never “add to or take away from it.” However, not all of our clients had a working knowledge of the bible, and it is safe to say that none of them were professional farmers, fishermen, or shepherds. As a thought exercise, I began to make up stories that illustrated our human nature and our relationship to God, but I used modern-day themes like cruise ship vacations, space travel, electric cars, and pet dogs. As the years passed, my wife encouraged me to put the stories into a collection. Having benefited from her wisdom and intuition over the years, I said, “Yes, ma’am!” and began to write.