Sex.God. – Introduction: This is Really About That

I love it when books are infused with the voice of the author – when they’re written in a conversational style and you feel as though you’re sitting, drinking coffee next the author while having this amazingly articulate conversation. Donald Miller has perfected this, and Rob Bell has done an impeccable job with it so far in Sex.God. He communicates in such an authentic and relatable way, and I dig that.

In this chapter, Bell uses the story of Jacob and Esau to illustrate a point. After deceiving his father and having Esau threaten his life, Jacob flees his home and finds himself helpless and alone. Instead of God abandoning Jacob, God promises to watch over and restore him. Out of gratitude for mercy give him, Jacob builds an altar for God out of rocks. But the altar isn’t just an arrangement of rocks to Jacob. To him, it is so much more. It marks the place where God called him out on his deceptions and instead of leaving him choose to intercede and turn Jacob’s life around.

“They’re rocks, but they’re more than rocks,” Bell states.

He goes on to say how that’s true for us in our lives too. A treasured picture holds much more than the image of what took place in a certain place in time. In our minds it translates to memories, relationships, commitment, love. When a tear rolls down my cheek after stumbling across pictures of an old boyfriend I haven’t quite gotten over, I’m not crying because of the image before me. I’m crying because of what is stirred up within me as a result of that photo. Feelings of nostalgia, rejection, delight, and pain all at the same time. It’s a picture, but it’s more than a picture.

“This is actually about that.”

When exploring human sexuality you have to discuss how we were physically created which leads us to identify and evaluate who it is that created us. And that leads us to God. Sex and God. They’re connected. Imagine that.

“And that is what this book is about.”