Reflections on: The Good Book

When we talk about a good book, we of course have to mention THE Good Book, and is the best description I think I have come across to explain why it deserves that title.  It is from the Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name.....  

The Story and the Song

"God wrote, "I love you" - he wrote it in the sky, and on the earth, and under the sea.  He wrote his message everywhere!  Because God created everything in this world to reflect him like a mirror- to show us what he is like, to help us know him, to make our hearts sing. 

The way a kitten chases her tail.  The way red poppies grow wild.  The way a dolphin swims.

And God put it into words, too, and wrote it in a book called "The Bible."

Now, some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling what you should and shouldn't do.  The Bible certainly does have some rules in it.  They show you how life works best.  But the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you should be doing.  It is about God and what he has done.    

Other people think the Bible is book of heroes, showing you people you should copy.  The Bible does have some heroes in it, but (as you'll soon find out) most of the people in the Bible aren't heroes at all.  They make some big mistakes (sometimes on purpose).  They get afraid and run away.  At times they are downright mean.

No, the Bible isn't a book of rules, or a book of heroes.  The Bible is most of all a Story.  It's an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure.  It's a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne- everything- to rescue the one he loves. It's like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!

You see, the best thing about the Story is - it's true.

There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story.  The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.  

It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story.  And at the center of the Story, there is a baby.  Every Story in the Bible whispers his name.  He is like the missing piece in a puzzle- the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.

And this is no ordinary baby.  This is the Child upon whom everything would depend.  This is the Child who would one day-- but wait.  Our Story starts where all good stories start.  Right at the very beginning.... "                                               ~Sally Lloyd-Jones

I find that I have never loved the Bible more than after I've become a mom.  It's these simple truths that I love re-learning as I read to them that have been clouded by my striving to be "scholastic," or "well-versed" or even "a pastor's wife."  It is the pouring out of my love for the Bible onto my two littles that has made me fall in the love with God's word all over again.

One day, during a mentoring meeting with my pastor's wife, after I ashamedly forgot to bring my Bible along, she handed me hers to borrow. 

It is a thin, soft pink, leather-bound, well-worn, small-scripted treasure.  She asked me to find a verse and read it out loud.  The pages turned so easily as if they have been commanded to do so many times by their owner.  It is well- inked.  Inside this book is the story of her journey with God.  It shows minutes of her meetings with Jesus.  It highlights verses that God pressed on her heart, and in the margins are notes she took while she listened to God speak through others directly to her.  My thoughts drift, not to the verse I am looking up, but to her daughter.  I can imagine her acquiring this treasure one day, and through these pages spending time with both her mother and Jesus.

Holding this book in hand, it makes me think....what if I kept a Bible to give to my girls for when they are grown?  Not my Bible.  (I imagine they would fight over it one day.)  It wouldn't be about my spiritual journey, but rather, the documentation of how God and I poured His love over them by using His Word.  I could write down verses we memorize together, scripture I want them to be sure to know,  and more importantly, the Truth I would pray for God to reveal to them in His own time.

It is the seeking of truth for the purpose of encouraging and loving my girls that has changed me so profoundly.  I will read a verse, underline it, and pen a few simple truths in the margins.  I'll write the date, so they know even when they were young, God and I were thinking about them.  And after I pray, and ask God to press these truths into their heart when they need it most, it's as though He presses it that much deeper into my own.  It is the constant filling for the purpose of spilling.

I hope and pray one day, they will see God's word, not as "a good book", but as The Good Book.