Excerpt from the Book

An Invitation

I want to ask you a question before we set out. It sounds harmless, and it is not.

What did God know on the day before creation?

Stay with it a moment. For if the answer is: everything, then he also knew what it would cost him. And he began anyway. This book is about that anyway.

The Christmas story is almost always told from below. We stand in the stable, next to the shepherds, our breath steaming, and we look into the manger. That is a good place, and I do not want to take it from anyone. But there is another one. Now and then Scripture opens a door through which we may look over the Father's shoulder. We see then what he saw, before it happened. That is where I want to take you. Not as a spectator. As one who goes along and wonders along. I have walked this way myself, and I walk it with you once more.

And at the end a sentence waits for you. You have long known it. And yet, I believe, you have never heard it.

Come along. We begin where nothing had yet begun.