The congregation where I attend church collectively over the past few months has been reading the book “Muscle and a Shovel” by Michael Shank. I started the book with everyone else, but like my blog talks about…life…yes it happened to me...and I put other activities and books ahead of “Muscle and a Shovel”. I let procrastination get the best of me but I finally was determined to conquer the book today before our big “Muscle and a Shovel” Sunday at church! I was on a mission to read or else I was going to stay up all night to get it done. I spent a few hours this afternoon and a few hours after dinner getting this accomplished. This awesome book is a true story about the author and how God used his co-worker to lead him to think deeply about his believes and question everything that he knew about religion. Within the book, the author tells his compelling story of how he comes to understand the truth through reading his Bible and how he and his wife became Christians through digging deep into studying the word.
I am hoping that within my life I can be more like the
co-worker in the book! Sometimes we get scared when it comes to religion and
then just do not say anything at all to others. This book logically outlines
the church of the New Testament and what individuals must do to become part of
the body of Christ. The book shows us how scriptures within the bible can be
used to change lives forever by simply starting the conversation with a few
questions and following it up with your beliefs backed by scriptures. An
underling theme in the story for those who are already Christians like me is to
dig deeper and really understand the full message of the Bible so that you can answer
questions about your faith whenever asked.
The author points out that reading the bible is not for the
lazy and weak because it takes a muscle and a shovel to really understand the
message. I love how the author explains the
importance of a muscle and a shovel are: “Mental”
muscle and a willingness to use “honest intelligence” (the metaphorical shovel)
to dig deep beyond all of our preconceived ideas, our false beliefs, and our
comfortable traditions. Studying the Bible takes muscle and a shovel. (p.
190-191). I know within the last year I have been trying hard to dig deeper and
study the scriptures more myself, so I leave you with the same challenge and the
challenge the author gave…study. Do not believe what others have always taught
you or what you have always heard…study. Actually, open the Bible and dig
deeper and investigate it for yourself. Shank, M. (2011). Muscle and a Shovel. Lightning Source Press.
