As we study the Bible, we may believe we are far removed from the people described on those pages. After all, many played significant roles in helping Jesus spread the gospel. Most of us find it difficult-if not impossible-to picture ourselves in that disciple-type role because we are sinful and don’t always make the wisest decisions.

In Characters of the Bible: Finding My Stories in Their Stories, author David Waddell shares his discovery of his similarity to characters in the Bible. He found a relationship with the woman in John 8:1-11. He saw himself in a crowd of Pharisees urging punishment of a woman who did something they had done or wanted to do. Waddell was the woman looking for love in all the wrong places. He was the woman at the mercy of Jesus who was forgiven of all her sins without defending herself. Waddell realized the connection he had with biblical characters because like him, and like us, they were sinful. And if we’re truthful with ourselves, we can be mean, deceitful, conniving, and abusing, just like many people described in the Bible. Yet God used them for His purposes, and He will use us if we let Him.

In Characters in the Bible: Finding My Stories in Their Stories, we can find comfort in knowing we are just as flawed, goofy, wrong, and misdirected as these biblical characters. It is through the lives of these people that we can see so much of ourselves.