I’m returning to the Old Testament this year—not because I feel strong, but because I don’t.

I’m not looking for polished answers or spiritual soundbites. I’m looking for something that can hold the weight of a life that doesn’t resolve neatly. Something honest enough to sit with unanswered prayers, unfinished repentance, and the long middle chapters I don’t know how to explain yet.

That’s why the Old Testament—what I’ve come to think of more intentionally as the First Testament of Jesus Christ—matters so much to me right now.

What struck me almost immediately is how messy these stories are.

These aren’t polished parables with tidy endings. They’re raw accounts of real people trying to live with God while dragging fear, pride, desire, trauma, and stubbornness behind them like broken farm equipment. Things go wrong. Families fracture. Leaders fail publicly. Consequences linger. Some prayers don’t get answered the way anyone hoped.

That rings true with my life right now.

There are chapters in the Old Testament that never resolve cleanly. No neat bow. No cinematic redemption arc. Just people pressing forward anyway. Still choosing. Still walking. Still wrestling with God.

I forgot how much I needed that.

Take David. A man after God’s own heart, and also a man capable of devastating choices. He’s not a villain. He’s not a saint carved from marble. He’s human. He repents. He suffers. He lives with consequences that don’t magically disappear just because forgiveness is real.

That matters to me.

There’s another story about David that I can’t get out of my head this year.

It comes from 1 Samuel 25. David is on the run from King Saul, living in the wilderness with a band of men. While there, they quietly protect the flocks and servants of a wealthy man named Nabal. Nothing is taken. No harm is done. When the time comes for shearing—when generosity would have been customary—David sends messengers asking only for fair treatment.

Nabal refuses. He insults David. He denies any obligation. And something in David snaps.

David and his men saddle up, ready to take justice into their own hands. It’s one of those moments where the line between righteous anger and destructive retaliation blurs fast.

Then Abigail enters the story.

She is Nabal’s wife. She did not commit the offense. She did not cause the insult. And yet she bears the cost anyway. She gathers provisions, rides out to meet David, and intercedes before blood is shed. She absorbs consequences she didn’t create and stops violence that would have scarred everyone involved.

Abigail stands in the gap.

I can’t read that story without seeing a type of Christ.

There are wounds I carry that were caused by others. There are wounds I’ve caused by neglect, impatience, or fear. And standing between all of that—between offense and destruction—is our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. He pays for what He did not do. He repairs what we cannot fix. He stops the cycle before it consumes us.

That story reminds me that God’s mercy often arrives before we fully deserve it—and sometimes before we even realize how close we are to doing irreversible damage.

Because there are seasons where forgiveness doesn’t feel finished. Where you believe in mercy, but you still wake up inside the aftermath of your own decisions. The Old Testament doesn’t pretend those seasons don’t exist.

What also stands out is how blurry the line is between “good guys” and “bad guys.” People waver. They obey, then rebel. They covenant, then forget. They soften their hearts, then harden them again. Over and over.

I see myself there.

And yet, threaded through all of it, is a God who keeps showing up.

Merciful.
Long-suffering.
Patient with stiff-necked people.

The Lord doesn’t excuse sin, but He also doesn’t abandon people the moment they fall short. He stays in relationship longer than logic would suggest. He invites return again and again, even when the pattern is exhausting.

That’s not weakness.
That’s covenant love.

As I’ve been sitting with these stories, another thought keeps coming back to me.

The prophets knew something I usually forget: they were writing for people they would never meet.

They knew their words would outlive them. That their journals, warnings, confessions, and testimonies would be read thousands of years later by people living lives they had seen.  

I keep wondering what I would write if I could see the people of the future.

And maybe that includes you—reading this now—right in the middle of your own unfinished story. Or someone years from now who stumbles across these words looking for proof that faith can survive failure, that belief can coexist with doubt, and that God doesn’t abandon people just because their lives don’t look clean or resolved.

So I’ve been asking myself a quieter question.

If I knew my children, or their children, or someone far down the line would read my life like scripture… what would I want them to see?

Not perfection.
Not success metrics.
Not a highlight reel.

I think the most honest legacy I could leave is repentance.

Not a moment, but a pattern.
Not a single turning point, but a lifetime of turning.

Repentance is the work of becoming. It is the refusal to let failure have the final word. It is choosing softness over cynicism, humility over hiding, and forward motion over shame. It is believing—again and again—that the gospel of Jesus Christ actually works, not just in theory, but in the middle of real lives with real messes.

There is a Plan of Happiness, but it does not bypass pain. It teaches us how to move through it without becoming bitter, hardened, or stuck. It teaches us how to keep coming back to God even when the pages of our lives look rough, unfinished, or hard to read.

If my life is read someday, I hope it is read as a record of return. A life marked not by flawlessness, but by willingness. Not by having it all together, but by continually turning my heart toward Christ.

That is the legacy I’m after.

God works with real people.
In real time.
Through real struggle.

And He keeps writing.

That gives me courage to keep writing mine—and to try again today.

Even if today is imperfect. Even if today is small. Even if today is simply choosing a little better than I did yesterday. That choice alone is enough to begin creating a Celestial day, right where I am.

Create A Celestial Day,




Scott Alan Westhoff
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