This is my Bible. In recent years, along with the Spirit, it has been my best friend. My roadmap. My comfort place. But for most of my life, it sat on a shelf, with its crazy awesome wisdom hidden amongst other books, wasted.
As our country and world are being shaken by COVID & conflict & communistic control tactics, it has occurred to me that one day soon we may not have the privilege of owning a bible. I sure hope I’m wrong! And please know before reading this post that I am not trying to get into conspiracy theory. I’m not believing that all is doomed and everyone is out to get us. But the way the atmosphere of our nation is going, it’s not too far fetched to imagine that Christians could be persecuted here like they are in other places.
The values of this country are getting further and further from the Christian beliefs that our founding fathers started it on. It’s becoming not only unpopular, but labeled “hateful” for us to voice our beliefs.
Immorality has become the norm in our society , and we are discouraged from speaking out against it.
Meanwhile, nobody wants us to speak out about our own innocent, yet powerful beliefs.
Everything in me wants to cry out for our country to repent. Because God is patient but he is also just. When the world became so corrupt in Noah’s time, he destroyed it. When Sodom & Gomorrah became disgustingly evil places, he destroyed them. When the Israelites turned away from God, he allowed their enemies to overtake them. Have we learned nothing from history? Do we really want to repeat this lesson? I sure don’t!
The enemy is so present today that I am amazed our bibles haven’t already been confiscated, but then it occurred to me. What better place to hide them than in plain sight? We take for granted that they’ll always be there, so we can make time to read it tomorrow, or next week, next month, next year. And we never do. Just like the 20 pounds we vow to lose, it never happens.
But what would happen if they were taken away? Suddenly the Bible would become like Gold. We’d read all we could and store it in our hearts so it couldn’t be stolen. We’d hide a copy in the safest hiding place we have. We’d spread that word like wildfire, so it couldn’t be contained!
Remember when hostess decided to stop making Twinkies? People snatched boxes off the shelf like they were $5 iPads on Black Friday! The last one sold on eBay for THOUSANDS of dollars! And some of the people that bought them probably hadn’t eaten a Twinkie in years. The month before they probably walked past them in a grocery store a dozen times without a second thought. It wasn’t until they realized they could no longer have one that they began to crave it.
We CANNOT wait until bibles are gone to crave the word inside them. We can’t hurriedly digest 66 books right before they confiscate them and expect to fuel a lifetime of living in a crazy world with the tiny bit of knowledge we may retain. We have to start NOW!
In Bible college a few years ago, I remember our professor sharing with us that in many countries people are put to death for having a bible in their possession. Homes and families and lives are destroyed. That tells me how very blessed we are to get to read it every single day if we choose, and it also tells me how much of a threat it must be to Satan and the evil oppressors of this world if they don’t want it in people’s hands! What is in there that they would kill for? That they’d use up resources to hunt down and destroy? Hope!
It was in hope that our forefathers risked their lives to come to a new land. HOPE for religious freedom. HOPE for a life without persecution. HOPE for a better future for their children. They knew the cost, and yet hope was powerful enough to keep them moving.
The Bible gives hope to
the bereaved,
the depressed,
the persecuted!
It gives hope to sinners like me,
that God loves us anyway
and has a better future in store for us!
And that He’s made himself available NOW
to teach us his ways of grace, if we’ll allow Him.
It gives hope to anyone who thinks about the fleeting nature of life-that there is something beyond our years here on Earth!
It gives hope that a loving father is watching over us and will help us through one day at a time!
I would dare to say that hope (along with love) is the most powerful, unseen “substance” in existence.
When we feel hopeless, we cannot bring ourselves to do anything.
Yet with hope, we are bouncing out of bed,
excited for the future and to start a brand new day!
And that is a threat to those who would prefer we continue to do nothing. A threat that one day they may attempt to take out.
So we can’t wait. NOW is the time. Consider this “low inventory” notice of the Twinkies! Grab YOURS off the shelf. Hide it in your heart where it can’t be taken away! Right now it is free. If we wait too long, it’ll cost infinitely more.
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