Jonathan Martin

Since I just signed my first book Prototype with Tyndale, it will of course be a while before its actual release, and therefore subject to plenty of changes.  I by no means want to overdo posting excerpts of it here, but wanted to pass along one short passage from chapter one that I think really captures the intimate vibe I hope the book will create.  I want it to be an intensely personal book to read and experience, which means I hope both to allow the reader well beyond the veil of my own heart and make it behind the veil of their own.  I think this little section speaks to that desire–I hope it connects with you!  From chapter one:

By now you know a little about me.  But before I move on, I’ve got a few questions for you:

What is your name? 

Where did you come from? 

Where are you going? 

Who are you…really? 

I apologize for being so forward.  I know we’ve barely met.  I don’t mean to be intrusive.  But if you read books the way most people do, this is already a pretty intimate thing we are doing.  Best as I can tell, people read books most often in bedrooms and bathrooms, the spaces we are most likely to have our defenses down.  We read in tight places, cramped into uncomfortably small seats on overcrowded airplanes, perhaps enclosed a little more snugly by the false privacy of headphones in our ears.

Since you are statistically likely to be reading this in an intimate space, I thought I would cut the formalities if that’s okay with you.  Let’s skip the appetizers and the foreplay.  Because while this is a book about God and a book with a lot of me in it, this really is a book about you.  It’s a book about what you hope for, what you are afraid of, who you are and who you might become. It’s a book about identity and a book about your future.  I’m not squeamish about you reading this in the bedroom or the bathroom, because it’s a book about being human in all the ways that Jesus was and said we could become.

I know it’s a little early for us to disrobe our souls, but your life is too important for me to waste time on social graces.  If we are going to say anything truthful about God, surely we have to tell the truth about ourselves first.   So I’ll ask the question again: Who are you?  And what is your name?  For Christ’s sake, please don’t answer me like this is a facebook profile.  As in, “Here is where I went to college, here are my favorite movies, here are my favorite bands.  I like to fish, to hunt, to play video games, to go scuba diving, to listen to Jay-Z.”  I didn’t ask you about your hobbies.  You are more than the sum total of your interests.

I asked who you are. 

I don’t think I’m overstating the case when I say that most of us live in a perpetual identity crisis.  We have access to an unprecedented amount of voices competing for our attention, voices telling us who we are and who we ought to be.  It’s why I think most of us fumble like its our first middle school dance when we are asked a question as direct as “who are you?” It’s not just that it’s an intrusive question, or that its difficult to sum up who we are within a few sentences.  I think most of the time, we honestly don’t know.

But what if it were possible to know who we are…really? What if it were possible to hear the name we had before the world was made?  What if it were possible to be so really and truly and fully alive—so fully human—that no matter what might happen to us, we would have no reason to be afraid?