No, I know it is.
We humans can make idols of anything. Sometimes it's hard for us to even see when we are doing it. There are earthly things that catch our attention and even the elect can get sucked into those things more than we should.
I have a friend that says we need Christian accountability, and we do. There are good things to be had in being accountable before another Christian but all too often those Christians will hold us accountable through their human eyes and not just to Scripture. I tell my friend that my accountability is before Christ. I also tell her that it is before my husband, who I truly believe to be one of the elect. But my husband tells me that it is Christ to whom I am accountable.
Still, I want him to tell me if he sees that I am growing too involved with the things of this world and not involved enough with the things of Christ. I want him to point out when I fail.
But I also have something else that points out my failures. It slices straight to my heart and chastises my thoughts. It effects my feelings and changes my moods and desires. It is my Bible.
I have lots of Bibles. Probably too many Bibles. I have study Bibles and reading Bibles. I have antique Bibles and reprinted Bibles. I have...
Well, you get the idea. I really do have too many Bibles. My sister once asked me why I had so many. She informed me that I can only read one at a time. She is right. And she is wrong. When I do an in depth Bible study sometimes I use four or more Bibles and the internet.
I also happen to just enjoy Bibles. I like the smell of them. The feel of them. I like to compare the pages and the different versions. I like to see other people's notes in Bibles I find in thrift stores and I like to just...enjoy Bibles.
But I have this one Bible....and it's that Bible I wish to introduce you to today. It is the main Bible I use. I bought it because I saw a review on it and it seemed like just what I was looking for in a Bible...and it was. Before that my favored Bible was a paperback New Testament that was falling apart. It was full of notes and had been taped together so many times that tape was about the only thing holding it together. I still have that New Testament and it still makes me smile to see it but I no longer use it.
Now I use its replacement.
A Bible is special, should always be special, because it is...the Lords Word. But this Bible is special in a different kind of way. It's special for holding the Lord's words but it's also special to me.
I use this Bible to study, use it in lessons, use it for blog posts, use it to look up things, to ponder. I use it to read to my husband. It is my Bible.
I remember reading something some time back, I don't know what it was or what it was about, but I remember thinking at the time that we should always be willing to give our Bible away should we encounter someone that needs it worse than we do. That thought still lingers. But I can't honestly say I would give this Bible away. I would if I really had to, if there were no other option, but I would look for any other option first. I would give away most of my other Bibles first, would buy someone a Bible, would...would try to find any out other than handing over my Bible to never be seen again.
Maybe that's wrong. Maybe I shouldn't even admit that on this blog but...I'm human. Some things I am just more attached to than others. My husband says I am too attached to all things. Maybe I am. This Bible certainly has endeared itself to me.
I own numerous Bibles. If I were to walk around my home and collect just my Bibles there would be...more than I should admit to owning. If I also added in my husbands Bibles there would be even more.
I own too many Bibles but most of them serve a purpose. Most of them are used for Bible studies. I have different versions for comparison, I have an interlinear New Testament for looking up the original texts, I have study Bibles and Chronological Bibles. I have...too many Bibles.
But 99.9% of the time I use only one. It is my Bible.
So are the other umpteen Bibles I own. But this one is different. This one is the one I grab when I want to do just about everything Scriptural. And much to the dismay of some, I write in my Bible. Not just little notes but whole margins full of them. I also highlight and underline. But that's not all. You see, to me my Bible is my own lifeline. It's my journey. My walk with Christ. My teacher. My instructor. My friend.
And because it's all that and so much more, I also put handprints of the children in my life in it. I put footprints and milestones in there. I write about what those I love are doing as I read a certain passage. I usually make those entries before I start studying Scripture and it brings me joy to do so. It's also a reminder to pray for those people when I later come across a hand or footprint, or a note about them. There is a note where I wrote that we were expecting our first granddaughter, long before we knew she was to be a girl. Another note tells my heartache of when that same child was born with heart problems and spent time in the NICU. I believe there's even a written prayer or two for her within the pages of my Bible.
I don't share that rather personal little tidbit because I feel anyone needs to know what I write, or don't write, in my Bible but because I have had discussions with people before about writing in the pages of such a holy book. It may be that my writing and notetaking is some form of disrespect for the Lord's word. I am sure there are many out there that would say it is but I don't see it that way. To me...my Bible is my friend. It's there to guide and teach me, to lead me along life's roads. There are Bibles I would not write in. I have at least one that I would never take a note in but that Bible is not my everyday using Bible.
My everyday using Bible, the one that is almost always close at hand, the one that has traveled hundreds of miles with me, the one that I have read while walking in my yard, eating meals, and doing deep studies...that Bible. That Bible is my dear friend that walks with me, talks with me (not literally), and was bought for the purpose of studying and writing in. It is a friend that catches much of my life in Christ and I choose to put within its pages some of my life on earth.
Last summer my husband and I spent some time away from home, not really on vacation, at least not on purpose. Medical reasons took us from our home to be close to doctors and then we found ourselves stuck there for a time. While there my husband and I shared a Bible, not that we don't normally share our Bibles, we do. What was different this time was that we shared my Bible. You know, the one that is my friend. The one that I write in. Yeah, that Bible.
At first I was just a bit uneasy. You see, handing my husband that Bible was like handing him my journal, I've done that before too, it was like giving him a window into my deepest thoughts, he already knows those. But somehow, even though I keep nothing from my husband, somehow handing him that Bible made me squirm just a bit. It made me wonder what he would think when he read the notes in the margins. What he would say when he saw that I wrote about him. What went through his mind when he read my prayers or my musings.
He never did comment on any of that. And in time I quit squirming and simply shared my friend with my dearest earthly friend. It was a learning lesson for me. And it made my friend, aka my Bible, that much dearer because it was shared with my husband.
All Bibles are special because they contain the Lord's word, that is, or should be, the only reason a Bible has value, in money or sentiment, but somehow in our earthly world there are earthly ways of placing value on a Bible that have nothing to do with the Lord. Antique Bibles are very valuable as collectors items. Facsimile Bibles are expensive. Leather binding raises the price. Certain publishers sell their Bibles for more... There is a long list of why and how and which Bible is valuable and which are cheap 'throw away' Bibles.
The Bible I use most isn't worth anything in earthly terms. I think I paid 11.00 for it. It does have a sewn together binding, something that raises it, in earthly terms, from the category of 'throw away', but it does not have a leather cover. What it does have is my Lord's word in a book that feels good in my hands and carries many lessons and memories for me when I look at it. And to me...it is priceless.
There is this fairly new fad of what they call Bible journaling. I don't know who started it. I don't know when it started. What I do know is that it is supposed to be a way of studying Scripture that makes it more meaningful. Maybe it does. I don't know. I have been writing in my Bible since I got my first one at the age of 7.
Back then my Bible was a free Bible, put out by the Gideons. How I came by it I don't know. I was going into second grade and had been enrolled in a 'Christian' school. One of the things I had to have was a Bible. That Bible was a King James Version and I could barely read. It may as well have been written in Russian or Chinese for all the sense it made to me.
It did have something that fascinated my seven year old self. The inside cover pages and a couple of the first pages were made out of some kind of black paper, similar to construction paper but better quality. Sometime during that second grade year I discovered that white crayons wrote on black paper. Oh, the fun that Bible gave me while I had to sit through Chapel every morning. Stars, hearts, words...they all appeared in bright white on that black paper.
That was the beginning of my writing in Bibles and I still do it to this day. I tell my family it wouldn't be my Bible if I didn't write in it and if questioned further I tell them I bought my Bible, you know that Bible, for the sole purpose of writing in it. And write in it I do. I've been journaling in my Bibles since long before Bible journaling became a thing. It's just something I do.
I still can't figure out what I think of the new Bible journaling idea. I have seen some examples that basically mark out all of Scripture except a single verse, whatever the verse being thought on is. I don't approve of that kind of Bible journaling. I've also seen some that does not take away from Scripture but instead adds pictures that somehow enhance it. I'm not opposed to that.
I also find myself thinking that most of the people that do Bible journaling as it has become are probably not regenerated and therefore it really doesn't matter what they do anyway.
I have tried the color a picture in your Bible kind of journaling. I think I did it on two pages in my Bible, you know the one that is that Bible.
I don't think journaling in a Bible the way people have taken to doing will teach deeper truths to unregenerate people. What I do think is that any time spent in Scripture is a good thing and if journaling in such a way will get someone studying Scripture it can't be bad. But...I don't think it will necessarily help either. The lost have a way of studying Scripture to death only to walk away with little to nothing gleaned from it. They study and study and study some more and fail to understand the Truth because they are blinded to it. For those that can see and understand the truth, journaling in their Bible isn't going to make or break that understanding.
There's nothing wrong with the sun and clouds I drew on one page or the tree and badly drawn miniature person I drew on another but the drawing of them did not draw me to Christ. I did ponder on the Lord's creation as I drew them but I was already thinking on it which is what drew me to those verses to begin with.
I enjoyed my brief foray into drawing in my Bible. I might do it again if the mood strikes me. I have at least one daughter that thinks it's neat and it opened up an avenue for discussion with her. That alone made it worthwhile. It also added to the conversation with my sister when I encouraged her to do it. So it wasn't wasted and was used for Biblical conversations, even if those conversations stemmed from coloring in a Bible.
But nothing in that coloring helped my understanding of Scripture. It did not help my Salvation. Did not teach me anything of Christ. It kept my fingers busy while my mind pondered on something that I had been thinking on long before I picked up those coloring implements to decorate pages in my Bible.
There is nothing wrong with my drawing in my bible, nothing wrong with my notetaking and journaling. It doesn't take away from the Scriptures contained within the pages...although I am certain there are some that would say it does...and every once in a while it helps me sort out my own thoughts as I write a note here or compare Scripture there.
It also took a cheap Bible that would have most likely simply set on a shelf had I not taken to writing within its pages and turned it into my favored Bible. I can pick up any Bible and read the Scriptures, and I do. I can study and learn from any Bible, and I do. But it's the little things that I add, the notes and stories, hand prints and prayers, that turned a cheap Bible into my favored one.
It keeps me company when I'm lonely. Lifts my spirit when I am sad. Calms my worries. Chases away fears. It feeds my soul. It is my Bible. It is my friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment