Shane Wood is a professor at Ozark Christian College, where he teaches on the New Testament and its origins. He doesn’t just teach college students, though. He also speaks at churches and conferences around the world and writes widely acclaimed books, including “Between Two Trees,” “Dragons, John, and Every Grain of Sand” and his most recent, “Thinning the Veil: Encountering Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation.”

In today’s conversation, Shane explores how God constantly reaches out to his people for connection — including through the book of Revelation. He’s also getting honest about the roots of his long-term battle with worry, his favorite ways to bond with friends and with God and the resources that have helped him most in his faith and healing journey.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

The meals we enjoy are about so much more than the food we eat. So how does a “go-to” meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?

I’m not a foodie, but I do love people. Not in an extroverted “I love being around everyone all the time” sort of way, although I’m not completely against that. But more in a “I want to know you, the true you” sort of way — what you’re struggling with, what you’re learning, what God is whispering to you, what pain tastes like to you, what story (be it present or past) presses the corners of your lips with joy. And I find that this level of intimacy organically unfolds around a table. Especially at a home. Sure, this can happen at a restaurant, so long as the ambient noise is at a moderate volume and the server is patient enough with your presence for more than just a meal. But in a home, walls tend to thin more seamlessly, and vulnerability often appears without much effort. Especially when each course is served with questions, time and presence.

Last week, my family and I reconnected with some dear friends at their home over a meal. Yes, we brought a dish of some sort, although I can’t recall what. And yes, we ate mounds of food over several hours, although I can’t remember any portion of the meal in particular. But I can recall our shared struggles of parenting adult children, the joys and strain of navigating life’s middle passage and the tears salting our stories when we reminisced on days gone by.

These are my favorite meals, of which I’ve partaken in pubs in Boston, diners in New York, elegant halls in Prague and in small homes in small towns like mine here in Joplin, Missouri.

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity do you love engaging in that also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?

First things first: I am a huge Boston Celtics fan. Rabid and pathetic, actually. I watch all 82 games throughout the year and every minute of every game if they make the playoffs, squeezing each game between my responsibilities as a husband, dad of four and a professor. To be honest, it is a holy exercise, a nice sabbath-like practice where I can get lost in something that I love that, at the same time, is absolutely meaningless. Recently, I’ve even found ways to harness my fandom to stimulate creativity and spiritual curiosity. Let me explain.

I love writing in big cities. Yes, some go to a cabin in the woods or an idyllic lake house for inspiration, but my “Walden’s Pond” is a big, bustling city (preferably New York or, you guessed it, Boston). In fact, for my new book, “Thinning the Veil: Encountering Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation,” I traveled to seven different cities across the world over the course of a year simply to write (e.g., Houston, Athens, Boston, etc.). My process is to wander through the city streets, stumbling upon coffee shops or public benches or ornate public libraries to perch, peer into my soul and contemplatively wander, allowing my fingers on the keys to translate the depths within.

Two things make this magical, both for my writing and for my soul: 1) the walks through the city from one location to the next provide anonymity and electricity, both of which stoke the fires within; 2) the live events I attend as my “reward” each evening (e.g., plays, concerts, etc.). But especially Boston Celtics games in the TD Garden.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness; every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you confront its power head-on?

Worry. As with most of our adult struggles, my addiction to worry stems from childhood wounds. Specifically, when I was 6 years old, I was molested for the first time by my babysitter.

I’m sorry if that startles you a bit. But I’ve learned over the years that deep wounds won’t turn into scars unless you are, first, willing to take your hands off the wound and expose it to the light. And I’m deeply committed to healing. Not just the idea but the painful, beautiful process of my wounds being healed through the wounds of Christ. Even when those wounds leave lingering effects far removed from the event itself. Like my worry.

When control is wrested from you at an early age, without warning and by someone you trust, stability and security seem elusive. With each passing year, you sift time for threats (past, present or otherwise), believing the pain and the unexpected are just around the bend. And the future is the most daunting, given its disposition toward unpredictability. Thus, my worry.

Worry seeks to protect, even if it destroys you along the way. The Lord, though, is far more patient and more tender with me than I am with myself, gently guiding me toward surrender. Teaching me that to utter, “Not my will but yours,” is far more productive than befriending anxiety and its phantoms that seek only to terrorize. Or so I’m learning.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

As a biblical scholar, I firmly believe the best way to read the Bible is to allow the Bible to read you. To unearth you. To illuminate and permeate every aspect of your life, refusing to entrust any facet of who you are to the darkness but offering all to God’s healing light. And my new book, “Thinning the Veil: Encountering Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation” attempts to do just that.

The book doesn’t begin with prediction, since the book of Revelation doesn’t either. Instead, the book begins with loneliness, for in Revelation 1, John is on the island of Patmos alone. And lonely. Indiscriminate of sinner and saint alike, loneliness impacts everyone. Me. You. And apparently, even apostles.

As each chapter unfolds, from Revelation 1 to Revelation 22, we find a God who isn’t content with sitting idly by as we wander and wallow in a world confused and confounded by evil. In Revelation, God draws near, reaching across the chasm of our sin and desperation to touch us with his nail-scarred hands.

Remarkably, many commentators on Revelation, be it professors or pastors, overlook the tenderness of God’s pursuit enmeshed in every symbol furnishing each verse. They settle, instead, for cosmic fortune-telling that incites fear instead of faith, frenzy instead of the Prince of Peace.

Yet Revelation is unrelenting in its message and in its call. For this last book of the Bible reveals that the veil between heaven and earth is not as thick as we assume, regardless of what our eyes may see, political pundits may preach or the lies our loneliness whispers. In “Thinning the Veil,” Revelation is read as a book of conviction and transformation that invites the reader to a resurrection today.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

My relationship with God is less like Paul being caught up into the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2-5) and more like Jacob wrestling with God on the banks of the river Jabbok, refusing to let go even after dislocating his hip. More collisions than cliches. And yet, God is always tender with me. Through every doubt or frustration, he sings to me, signaling that he is proud of our frank relationship.

My work is an outworking of this wrestling with God. My writing is a sacred space where I allow my prayer closet to merge with my laptop, creating a type of contemplative spiritual therapy.

For example, a couple of weeks back, I was in a difficult season, which usually results in prayer sessions with the Lord at 3 a.m. (or whatever time he decides to disrupt my sleep so we can talk things through). On this night, I was beyond frustrated, audaciously praying, “I can’t believe you’re allowing this to happen. This is beneath you as a good God. You’re better than this.” I firmly closed my laptop, went back to sleep, only to awake with an overwhelming sense of guilt. I was so appalled at my attitude that I skipped my prayer time (as if that would fix things) and headed straight into work.

Around lunch, I got a random text from a close friend with a seemingly random quote: “Hey I came across this and thought you’d like it: ‘Lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness.” It felt like God was winking at me saying, “It’s okay. Like the psalmists, our relationship is real. You’re okay.”

So I sat down to write, grateful for his tenderness, even amid my flailing that, at times, is nothing short of embarrassing.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?

Over the past several years, I’ve used the month of December (i.e., the season of Advent) to spiritually prepare for the upcoming year. My normal spiritual practices of Scripture reading, journaling, contemplative prayers and so on still persist — but with a different intent. My time of preparation centers on inviting the Spirit to unveil a theme or word that will unfold at God’s pace for the year to come.

For example, a couple of years ago, I sensed the Lord calling me to the word “steady.” Initially, I was more than underwhelmed. Yet I consider the word or theme sacred, containing a mystery meant for me to trust and patiently partner with the Spirit to unfold as the year progresses. Month after month, not just in my morning prayers but all throughout the day, “steady” would surface, calling me to peer ever deeper into its invitation.

Almost two-thirds of the way through the year, an image of “steady” surfaced: a small boat caught in a powerful storm in the middle of the ocean. As the wind and waves threatened to pull the skiff apart, a gentle voice revealed: “The best way to survive a storm is to simply lower the sails.”

The thought was terrifying yet profound. In the storms of life, I tend to strain with relentless force, fighting schedules, expectations and any threats I perceive, real or otherwise. Yet sometimes, especially for those of us drawn to worry, lowering the sails brings a strange steadiness, where the small boat surrenders to the movements of the storm, trusting wherever it ends is where I need to be.

Each year it’s a different word, a different revelation, all governed by the patient promptings of the Spirit.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and your heart?

Over the past decade or so, I’ve been most transformed by counseling, books and monasteries.

After finishing my Ph.D., I remember sitting on the couch looking at my diploma, which had just arrived in the mail. My wife sat down next to me and asked, “So what are you thinking?” Without hesitation, I said, “I’m thinking: I thought this would feel different.” Without knowing it, deep down below what was conscious, I thought that completing my doctorate would heal something in me. What? I didn’t know. But when nothing seemed to change after I summited this laborious mountain, I was disoriented. So I found myself sitting in a counselor’s office processing my story for the first time. Something that has proffered endless healing and a variety of unforeseen fruit.

Through it all, two books found me that, for a multitude of reasons, I now treasure. Chief among them is “Lilith” by George MacDonald. I don’t read fiction often, to be honest, but the words of this inimitable writer blurred the perils of Mr. Vane with my own healing journey. Similarly, Hannah Hurnard’s “Hinds’ Feet on High Places” matched my own struggle to transform with the allegorical ascent of “Much-Afraid,” a tender reminder of God’s persistence and grace on this circuitous journey.

Much of this reading and wrestling, reflection and healing took place on strategic retreats to nearby monasteries — hidden havens tucked away from frenzied life that revere simplicity and prayer. Even as a Protestant, they invited me into their contemplative community, providing a womb through which God could re-knit me and make me whole.

We all have things we cling to to survive or even thrive in our fast-paced, techno-driven world. How have you been successful in harnessing technology to aid in your spiritual growth?

My relationship with technology is not exactly tumultuous but hardly tranquil. I love exploring its promises of efficiency with the hope that it will free me for matters of far more importance than death-scrolling social media apps. I gravitate toward earbuds and audiobooks when I exercise, even using the audio feature on YouVersion to read me Psalms as I stroll through the park. I’m persistently intrigued by the conversations and connections offered through podcasts and calendar reminders that prompt me to pray for or text a friend to see how the surgery went.

And yet, technology reminds me that, at my core, God made me to be human. Not accessible to all people at all times like God or aware of everything that happens in every single location like God. I am bound to a particular place at a particular time. And that’s grace. If I can accept it. If I can press into it. If I can remember what Adam and Eve failed to embrace, that to be made in the image of God does not mean that I can handle all that God does. There is wisdom in accepting my limitations, regardless of what technology may promise in exchange. And for that reason (and others like it), I seek to harness technology for spiritual vitality while never forgetting that not all fruit ought to be tasted.

QUESTION #8: dream

God’s continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

From a young age, our family has recited a mantra in the form of a command: “Remember who you are.” When my kids were in kindergarten, I’d recite a formula of questions each morning that would end with that imperative. So for my oldest, I’d ask, “Zion, who are we?” Without fail, he’d respond, “The Wood family.” Then I’d press deeper, “And who is the Wood family?” With a predictable cadence, he’d say, “Christians.” And then I’d offer this last question, “And what do Christians do?” A list would unfurl, typically containing some combination of not lying or fighting or hurting others but loving everyone. Then, I’d conclude the moment by saying, “That’s right. So, Zion, remember who you are.” Why? Because action flows from identity.

At 42 in my 16th year of being a professor, I still struggle knowing “who I am” and thus “what to do.” Fear disrupts, past insecurities distort, and imposter syndrome whispers lies not easy to overcome. Nevertheless, I admit, writing does seem to be something the Lord is calling me to, and so I’m trying to press into the identity of “author” in various forms.

Recently, I launched my own Substack titled “Letters from the Desert,” where I write short essays on my wrestlings with faith, life, family, God and the darkness of my own heart. A tender exploration of God’s pursuit of me even as I wander. I’m also currently working on a Colossians commentary in a series edited by Scot McKnight and Nijay Gupta, various academic articles and editorial ventures, and writing a spiritually contemplative book that explores God’s pursuit of his beloved creation in spite of sin’s efforts to imprison (a sort of follow-up to my previous book, “Between Two Trees: Our Transformation from Death to Life”).

As Shane just said, our actions flow directly from who we are (or who we think we are). It’s why our spiritual enemy loves to lie to us about our identities in Christ, trying desperately to create distance between us and our Good Shepherd.

If you’ve been struggling in the fury of that battle, consider exploring in depth what the Bible says about who you are in Christ and creating some “I am” statements from what you find. Here are a few to get you started:

I am a saint, made holy through Christ (Rom. 1:7, 1 Cor. 1:2)
I am light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8)
I am God’s workmanship, created to do the good works he’s planned out for me (Eph. 2:10)
I am a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17)
I am part of a chosen people, a royal priesthood and a holy nation (1 Pet. 2:9)

Your turn. What will you add?

Shane Wood