My First Bible

I can think of very few things I have owned for thirty years. The clothes of my childhood don’t quite fit anymore. The footballs, bicycles, video games – they have all be thrown away or donated or are in the back of one of the closets at my mom’s house. I do have a monkey that is older thirty years. He is quite handsome, but well worn. Tall and slender. Stuffed with women’s nylons. I guess men don’t wear nylons, so the word “women’s” is a bit redundant. The monkey is in David’s room now.

I still remember the day I got my Bible. There was eight or nine of us. We were confirmed together. We graduated together. We have gathered two more times in the church: for the funerals of two boys who got their Bibles that day. Never were the words of the Bible more important than they were on those two days. The eight of nine of us were all dressed up in our Sunday best, which was most likely khaki pants, a white shirt, and a tie for the boys and some kind of long dress for the girls. We nervously stood in front of the small congregation and were presented our Bible. We were encouraged to read it and bring it with us to Sunday school and worship. 

The Bible got put away for about ten years or so. It was always available, but seldom used. This Bible travelled with me when I left my little town in northwest Iowa as a socially awkward eighteen year old and attended college at Drake University. I didn’t believe in God at the time, but taking the Bible to college seemed like the right thing to do. The Bible has lived in such places as Spencer, Iowa; Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; and Lexington, Kentucky. 

I remember one time I travelled to Malaysia and Indonesia. We gave hundreds of Bibles, written in their language, to young adults hungry for God’s Word. They opened them with the same wide-eyed optimism that a child opens his or her first present on Christmas morning. 

This morning I’ll give away about thirty-five Bibles to our third grade students. I was looking at the Bibles the other day. They are a little more colorful and well illustrated than mine. They have sections to explain things and help apply God’s Word to our lives. But the words remain the same. 

I’ll probably say something like this on Sunday morning: Find a few minutes to read this book everyday. Read it on the days when you think you need it the least and read it on the days when you need it the most. Read it with your family a couple times a week and talk for a few minutes about what it means. If you don’t understand everything, that’s okay. Sometimes I don’t either. But keep reading. It is the best way to hear God’s voice and is the single most important thing that will help you think and act like God. And thirty years from now, you’ll still have it. 

The best is yet to come… 

Craig