About the Author

Jeff Reich remembers telling stories around campfires at Bible camp, while attending Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota (where he took degrees in business, economics and English).

For over 30 years, he has been entertaining high schoolers with stories from the gospels and challenging their imaginations through stories. Jeff is married and has two grown children.

Faith in Jesus comes easily for some us. For some, the reality of Jesus is as natural as
breath itself. Some find Jesus in their lives at an early age, and their lives are forever
changed from that day forward. This book is for the rest of us.

Sometimes, we have mountaintop experiences where everything in life seems so
wonderful. Yet, sometimes we lose faith in Jesus. Sometimes, we lose faith in ourselves.
Sometimes, we lose faith in our friends and family. We become distracted by other
things that seem so important in our lives at this very moment. Sometimes, really bad
things happen. We misjudge other people. We make mistakes. We pick up. We try
again. Our faith life is a journey that is sometimes wonderful, and sometimes we are in a
dark valley. Yet, we trod onward.

This collection of stories was written for high school students. It is a fictional story of a
15 year old girl, and a 15 year old boy who live in the same town. They attend separate
schools. They attend the same church. They like each other. They try to be good and do
the right thing, but it is not easy in this secular world that surrounds them. Sometimes,
Jesus seems so very, very far away. Yet, sometimes He seems so very close. So often
our faith walk doesn’t look like a faith walk. It just looks like life happening to us. Only
later, as we look back and reflect, do we see the possibilities of how our life is a part of
the rich texture of God’s Creation.

The promise of the Gospel story is that Jesus is here. He is with us. Jesus is in our midst
with His Love and Grace even when we are full of disbelief. Jesus rejoices in those
moments when our world is filled with joy. He sheds real tears when we suffer in this
imperfect world.

The stories in this book are based on true stories. Interwoven into each fictional event, is
a real person encountering life and faith in real ways that I have been honored to witness
in 30 years of working with high school youth. In all of those years, I have been a story
teller. Jesus told stories. He called them parables. I kept each of these stories short so
that they could be read aloud to a group of students as a devotional. After you read each
of these stories, close your eyes for a moment, and wonder just how “The Kingdom of
God is Like This.”