by Peter Leavell, @PeterLeavell

In 2011, my dreams came true and in one instant, I won a publishing contract and could add award winning author to my bio. I’d snatched success, folded the accolades up, and shoved them into my zipper pocket.

My second book hit Amazon’s best seller list and won both Christian and secular awards. Nowadays, my fingers are in so many projects, I’m a dude who has to bullet journal just to keep track of them all.

So, why am taking all the chips I won last round and shoving them back on the table for a new bet?

Two months ago, I read one question that changed my life. I’m risking my job, my finances, my fiction writing, my ghostwriting, and my online craft columns all on one tidbit I’d read. All to go back to University and grab as much formal education as I can.

How did a few words hold such power that I would risk my current success?

Three months ago, I needed to prepare for a speech.

I wandered to the fourth floor of our University library. The dust was strong, and I stifled a sneeze. Darkened rows of books deadened the sound. Voices from authors long buried whispered with hoary accents. Near the back corner, where cobwebs crisscrossed my path, I found the ancient tomes I needed.

The covers felt like decomposing cloth, and the pages nearly crumbled to my touch. Three years studying history for my degree taught me how to handle such timeless treasures. While the paper was yellow and torn, the ink was strong and the words powerful.

And then I came across the question.

I stared at the wall for an age without seeing. I blinked. I reached up a hand and ran a finger over the imprint. The words were there. I had read them, and I could never unread them.

They pressed through the synapses in my mind, working through my meiosis processes, and seared them in the stone core of my soul.

God knows I love books. I love the smell, the feel, the promise of good times we will have together. Great pride swells when I see my books in a library collection, adding to the mosaic of novels and biographies. My private goals included a shelf filled with books stamped with my name, hanging out on every bestseller list for months at a time, a Pulitzer on my shelf. All those thoughts melted before the lava pouring from the volcano erupting in my mind.

I read the question again. And again.

Do you love the books more than the truth they contain?

And the volume vanished into smoke.

I asked myself the question again. Do you love the books more than the truth they contain?

The question hounded my dreams. I tried to hold off what this meant for my life, knowing the scope of my life would change if I found the answer to the question, but studies I’d memorized for my speech hit my defenses like canons against a wall.

My research pointed to fake news. Digital corruption. Air brushed photos. Online manipulation. Hopeless science and misdirecting preachers. Where do people turn for truth?

Millennials are turning to librarians—sacred gatekeepers of books that are passed from expert to expert, publishers to editor, checked and rechecked. They are turning to writers who live somewhere between earth and heaven or earth and hell, looking upon society and commenting on the best ways to live. They are turning to teachers who have dedicated themselves to scholarship.

Peter. Do you love the books more than the truth they contain?

The answer for me is clear. It’s time for me to move from pseudo-scholar to scholar. I’m going back to university at age 40. I’ll teach. I’ll champion librarians and libraries. I will write books, both fiction and nonfiction, both secular and sacred. I will take confidence in the fact that scholarship, if researched with honesty and open minds, will lead to truth, which I believe will strengthen faith in God.

My production has risen now that I see my novels as one of many forms which illuminate truth.

So, let me ask you. What does the question mean to you?

Do you love the books more than the truth they contain?

Dino Hunters: Discovery in the Desert

Siblings Josh and Abby Hunter don’t believe their parents’ death was an accident. After taking pictures of the most incredible find of the 1920’s—proof humans and dinosaurs lived together in the same time and place—desperate outlaws armed with tommy guns are on their tail! Only Josh and Abby know where the proof is hidden—in the canyons of Arizona’s desert. When an intruder searches Josh and Abby’s bags inside their new home, the two convince their uncle Dr. David Hunter to return to the canyon and find the pictures they’d hidden. But the outlaws are just as eager to find the proof before Josh and Abby. Can Josh use his super-smart brain to outfox the villains in time? Will Abby’s incredible physical abilities stop full-grown men? And will their uncle believe them?
Dino Hunters is an apologetics-adventure series aimed at the middle reader to help them trust the Bible from the very first verse.