When he was around 10 years old, Becker resident Daniel Myles began asking his family fun questions around the dinner table. Realizing there was something special in the questions, his parents began writing them down in a notebook, and today those questions have grown and expanded into the book, “If…What If? Quirky Questions and Daily Devotionals to Feed Your Family and Your Faith.”

 

A writer and public speaker himself, Tony Myles, who is also a pastor at Riverside Church in Big Lake and an adjunct professor at Crown College, originally saw Daniel’s questions becoming a book by themselves, but publishers weren’t that interested.

 

His brother-in-law, working at a chain of Christian book stores called LifeWay, asked them to consider incorporating an inspirational message into each day along with the questions.

 

“We decided to take it a step further,” said Tony. “We thought, what if we can teach families about the Bible, but in a fun and educational way? It’s the greatest story families can dive into.”

 

“The Bible is super imposing,” said Daniel. “It’s like going to Disney World without a plan and becoming overwhelmed. This book is a guidebook, it’s like a tour guide to show how this relates to that and to help you understand what the Bible is trying to do.”

 

If…What If? works through the Bible chronologically from Genesis to Revelation using 365 devotions to help readers put all the pieces together. 

 

The co-authors created the acronym, “There is Hope,” to help readers understand the main message of the Bible. The letters stand for trinity, heritage, enemy, revolution, ego, identify, shhh…, hero, opportunity, purpose and eternity. 

 

“We want families to know no matter where they’re at there’s more to it, there’s another chapter coming,” said Tony. “There’s always hope.”

 

Designed to help families create meaningful discussions, each daily devotional begins with a fun “if” that could happen question followed by a “what if” it could question. “If you could create a planet that only you could visit, what would it be like?” “What if you were creating a planet for other people?”

 

The questions lead to Bible verses that tie into their theme, for example, the verse that follows the previous questions is Genesis 1:1, which talks about God creating the world. A devotional follows that expands on the theme.

 

Each daily devotional concludes with a “There is Hope” message and then ends with more themed questions. Each week recaps with more questions that are designed for families to think more deeply about what they’re learning.

 

Working on the book, Tony Myles would write the daily devotionals and Daniel would come up with the fun and quirky questions to go along with them. Other times Tony would look to Daniel’s massive list of questions for inspiration.

 

“We played off of each other’s strengths that way,” he said. “These are questions anyone can engage with, from the youngest to the oldest.”

 

It took around a year and a half to write, but at its conclusion If…What If? was published by B&H Publishing and released on Nov. 5. It’s available through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target and other retailers. 

 

The book’s reception has been good; the duo was recently interviewed by KTIS radio, and in January they’ll be promoting it at book stores. The publisher is adding more interest by giving away extra questions online.

 

Today Daniel Myles is a 15-year-old freshman at Minnesota Connections Academy, a K-12 online public school. Although his goal is to go to college to become a youth pastor, he hasn’t ruled out writing another book.