Author

2600 words long.

Published on 2024-02-29

Who am I?

My name is Paul Anton Chernoch. I love my savior, my family, and my church. When I get distracted from those important people, it is because of my other loves: numbers and words. My love for mathematics I learned from my mother, Martha, who earned a degree in that subject from Duke University. In third or fourth grade, she taught me how to extract square roots by hand. That made me the only kid in my school who could do that. That one thing she taught me made me feel special and gave me the confidence to excel at math. Pardon a bit of foolishness as I honor her memory with a "product" of my imagination.

During the four years that preceded my religious conversion, I only picked up the Bible twice. The second time was to read Psalm 23, about the good shepherd who leads his lost sheep back to safety. The danger in that Psalm is the valley of the shadow of death; my personal valley was the deep depression that nearly kept me from graduating college. I believe that reading Psalm 23 was my turning point. It was to me a faint call of the shepherd in the distance, an early step toward salvation. By a strange coincidence, I would give my heart to Jesus at age 23.

Jesus is both man and God, will come a second time, and as the eternal Word is found in two testaments, old and new. Jesus is the number two.

The Father is the one "who is and who was and who is to come" as it says in Revelation 1 and 4. The thrice holy God is past, present and future and the head of the trinity. The Father is the number three.

The Holy Spirit has many dimensions, called the seven spirits of God sent into the earth in Revelation, which seven spirits are named in Isaiah 11:2. The Spirit is the number seven.

What do you get if you collect Psalm 23 and the numbers for each member of the Trinity, with Jesus' number included twice, and multiply them together?

2 x 2 x 3 x 7 x 23 = 1932

1932 is the year my mathematical mother was born!

Education

I earned my BS in Physics from MIT in 1987. For this I owe my father a debt of gratitude. He dedicated his life to applied physics. At General Electric, he invented the face pumped laser, much more powerful than all earlier lasers. That enabled him to be the first person to cut a hole through a diamond with a laser, paricipate in designing the first laser-guided missile system, and be the first to cut holes through aircraft engine steel. He was a good teacher, too.

On the surface, knowledge of physics and mathematics may seem an irrelevant credential for an author of books on theology. Spiritual truths are spiritually discerned. However, consider Samson. He was as strong when fighting the Philistines for God as he was when protecting his sheep from predators for his family. Strength is strength. Thanks to God, I have a strong analytical mind. Thirty plus years as a software engineer for companies in industries like accounting, finance, insurance, healthcare, logistics, travel, education, and energy have tested and sharpened those analytical skills. One year the software that I was lead designer for helped my employer shave a billion dollars off their corporate liability by optimizing the process of abandoning deep sea oil wells. That is a measure of the attention to detail and creativity that I carry over into my study of God's word.

My MIT education is noteworthy for another reason. Most of my professors and classmates were agnostics or atheists. I did not become a Christian until my fifth year as a student there. Despite the intellectual force of such a proud and accomplished community, I came to believe in God and the truthfulness and infallibility of the Bible, even in the matter of the origins of life on earth. Learning apologetic responses to the most potent critiques of Christianity on the planet became a survival skill and sharpened my understanding of Christian doctrine.

I also completed classes in Systematic Theology, Church History and New Testament theology at Gordon Conwell's Center for Urban Ministerial Education.

Ministry

Over the years I have served in my church as head usher, world outreach chairman, Bible study leader, Sunday school teacher, and nursery volunteer, to mention a few roles. I went on two short term mission trips to Romania. I also helped produce three episodes of a Christian TV talk show.

Writing

I took up writing as my principal hobby around 2004. I began by writing Christian fantasy novels, before shifting to nonfiction works of theology. I have also helped other writers by editing their books and converting them into e-books, including a book on theology, one on outlining a novel, a work of poetry, a book on training your diabetic alert dog, a medieval romance and a western. I have been an active member at ChristianWriters.com since 2005.

Family

My wife Tina and I have been married for thirty years. We have three amazing daughters. One is a poet and teacher with an MFA from UMASS Boston. The next has a masters from Northeastern in Environmental Studies. The youngest is finishing her art degree at UMASS. Raising them while survivng unemployment, financial hardships, health crises, and all the rest was my real education. A degree from the House of Mourning is of greater value than an MIT diploma.

Prayer

I could tell you funny stories about my childhood pet duck Nibbler, whom we kept in the bathtub during winter, or about my pony Paint who loved to sweep me off his back using low tree branches, or our llama Sweetheart who knocked my dad flat and sat on him until my uncle chased him off with a baseball bat. I could make you laugh, maybe make you like me, but that would not do much to reassure you that I know what I am talking about. My chief qualification is that I pray. But how do I pray? What kind of "prayer warrior" am I?

First, there are people of great faith, piety, discipline and persistence who out of the excellency of their character pray in all situations. These are the Ephesiasn 6:18 people who "[pray] at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, [they] keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints." You can trust that such people hear often from God and have many worthy things to say. I do not normally fall into this category.

Second, there are people of weak faith who because they are enduring great hardship pray for their own pressing needs, for jobs when they are unemployed, for cures when they or their family members are sick and for friends when they are lonely. You can trust the testimony of such people in proportion to the mercies God has showered upon them. Their words can reassure and strengthen your faith. Their wisdom is small but reliable. Most Christians fall into this category. During many days, months and years of my life, that is where I would put myself.

Third, there are people moved by the Spirit to pray. A wise Christian once told me that when God wants something done, he calls his people to pray. This is also true when God, out of the abundance of his mercy and grace, desires to give you a gift. God can give you a gift without notice, without warning and without prayer, but it is so helpful to your soul and the vibrancy of your prayer life when you pray for a blessing and God grants it. Do we know what we need? Do we believe in the abundant generosity of God? Have we the audacity and wisdom and creativity to ask for the marvelous blessings available to the faithful? Many times we do not!

Now to him who is able to do

immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,

according to his power that is at work within us,

to him be glory in the church

and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations,

for ever and ever! Amen. - Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)

It is when God has a gift reserved for us that is beyond our wildest expectations that He causes even the lazy, unfocused, weak and fearful among us to pray with expectant passion for extended periods of time. I have found myself in their number on many occasions. It is because of such prayers that I have made progress in my pursuit of God's wisdom. A few examples should suffice.

Barrenness. Between Fall 1985 and Spring 1987, I meditated on Habakkuk 3:17-19 every single day, praying for abundance in the midst of my barren, aimless life of depression and fear. To maintain this prayer focus, I even programmed my lab computer to print out those Bible verses every time I logged in. Like that prophet, I learned to praise God even when I saw no sign of the abundance for which I hungered. The Lord answered my prayer and I was able to complete my thesis and graduate from MIT. Years later, the Lord revealed to me Jesus' Harvest Pattern for how to turn a barren life into a fruitful one.

Folly. In January 1988, I confessed to God that I was a fool. Therefore I made a New Years Resolution to "Get Wisdom". Every day without fail for that whole year I read from the Bible's wisdom books, which at that time meant Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and James. If I didn't understand a proverb, I prayed for insight. If my behavior did not line up with the wise and righteous path that it described, I prayed for forgiveness and for grace to change my ways. Proverbs became my prayer journal. By the end of the year, I learned how to see and worship Jesus in Proverbs the same way that others do that with the Psalms.

Fear. A year or two later, I was tormented by nightmares about the end of the world. How can you plan and live your life when you are afraid it is about to end? I went to my pastor and we prayed. Then I got a marvelous idea. I collected images from the nightmares, like wild beasts attacking, a dam bursting and drowning me, or other horrid images. I looked those images up in a Bible concordance, which led me to Psalms or Isaiah. Then I threw away all meaning from the dreams and read what the Bible had to say about those topics. The Psalms comforted me and healed my emotions, then Isaiah 35 challenged me with a liberating truth. The prophet spoke about the Way of Holiness on which no wild beasts may roam. That road, the path of repentance, holiness and discipleship, is the only road safe to walk on when we go through life. After several months of praying and meditating on the Psalms and Isaiah, the nightmares stopped. It is now more than thirty years later and they have not returned. That passage became one of the key inspirations for my fist novel, Flight After Death.

Poverty. Do you struggle to live by the Golden Rule? In the early 1990's, I ran up against a wall. How do you give to others when you feel poor? Sometimes the wisdom God gives us is the truth of our humble state. I decided to memorize the whole Sermon on the Mount. It took months. This gave me a new insight into the Golden Rule. If you want to have something to give to others, you need to ask, seek and knock. Do this consistently and God will supply what you need to help your neighbor. However, this discovery revealed my ignorance. In that same sermon, Jesus said that we should store up treasures in Heaven. I had the good sense to admit my ignorance. What are those heavenly treasures? Is there a list somewhere? I spent the next two decades searching. The result of my search was my first nonfiction book, The Endless Hunt: Or if I've found God, Why am I still Looking?. I found many treasures for my list. One is generosity, the very heart of the Golden Rule.

Glory. To my surprise and chagrin, I almost finished that book before I discovered the most important treasure of all: the Glory of God. It seems that C.S. Lewis once made the same mistake. Lewis wrote The Weight of Glory to describe his error and the fruit of his search to understand God's glory and accord it the place of importance that it deserves in the heart of the believer. In parallel fashion, I noticed that Moses prized God's glory above all else in this world. In Exodus 33, even after God promised many marvelous things to Moses, the prophet pressed on with his most urgent request:

Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” - Exodus 33:18

I recognized two things. First, Moses prized God's glory as his greatest desire. Second, I did not. I felt deeply ashamed that I did not properly treasure the things that God treasured. My search for all God's heavenly treasures now shrank to one. I began to pray and fast every Monday with a single prayer, "Lord, show me your glory." I kept up this fast for three years, roughly from 2012 to 2015. During all those years I received no dreams, saw no visions, experienced no miracles and had no unusual answers to prayer. Even so, I did not end the fast because I gave up believing that God would answer my prayer. In a way that I cannot explain, I knew that He had heard me and so I stopped praying and began to wait. Starting about a year later, the Lord began to show me His glory. He did this by opening up His word to me. I saw marvelous things in his law and Bible passages that once made no sense exploded with meaning. My books on Job, Ecclesiastes and the Ten Commandments are the result of this.

Out of His own good pleasure and due to no merit of my own, God purposed to show me His glory and reveal a measure of His wisdom to me. Before that could happen, I had to pray - a lot. The Holy Spirit gave me the prayer, sustained me in prayer, and then answered my prayer.

That is why you should ponder my words. I am not an apostle. I am not a prophet. I make mistakes and misunderstand things, just like most Christians before me. Yet mixed in among the limitations of my nature, you will find wisdom from God. May it bless you as it has blessed me. Read it, pray over it, accept some pieces and reject others, but please do not ignore it. The singular focus of most of the last thirty-five years of my life has been to pray for, fast for, memorize, meditate on, write about and test through my deeds the wisdom of God. Just before speaking the Golden Rule, Jesus said that if a child asks their father for bread, he will not give them a stone. I have asked for wisdom. If my words are without merit, it could only mean that God gave me a stone. What do you think?

Who am I?

That is who I am.