Thoughts On A Given Day

I have a bookmark in my Bible that I have had for a long time, since 1980, if my memory serves me correctly. On the front of the bookmark is a small picture and a Bible verse. On the back of the bookmark is a short note written by my older brother in which he explained that he and his wife had stopped by my apartment in Boone, North Carolina, unannounced and unexpected, but had found my wife and I not at home. The reason I have kept this bookmark all these years is that it is one of two letters that I have received from my brother during my entire life. This was the second. The first letter I received from my brother was one that he sent to me when I was in Germany with the Army in 1975. I don’t remember a whole lot of what he had to say in that letter except for the fact that he asked me if I was reading my Bible. At the time that was one of the most profound and timely questions that I had ever been asked in my life. I was stationed in Coburg, Germany, where I was one of four permanent party American soldiers on an otherwise West German base. Every month a different troop of Armored Calvary soldiers rotated to Coburg in defense of the East German border, which was nearby. My job was to provide medical support for those soldiers, but since that didn’t really take up much of my time, I also ran the library there. This consisted of a small room with bookshelves that lined every wall, and those shelves were filled, mostly with paperbacks, from who knows where. I can honestly say that I while in Coburg I had found myself with a hunger, a thirst for something – I didn’t know what that something was. I only knew that I yearned for it, and I could not find it in any of those books in that library. I know, because I had looked through every single one of them. I had read most, and I could not find whatever it was for which I searched.

When I received that letter from my brother I had to answer honestly, no, I was not reading my Bible. The reality was that I had never read my Bible. I had been a Christian since I was 10 years old. I had been in church every time the doors were open. That was the way my parents raised us in my home. I had been in the Sunday School classes where we had learned Bible stories. I knew many Bible stories, but I had no idea where they came in the Bible, what the background was behind those stories, and how they fit into God’s plan of salvation, because I had never actually read the Bible. When I received that letter I had a Bible in my possession, the same one my parents had given me when I was first baptized. It was a red letter King James Version Bible, and I began to read it. I must confess that I could not wade very far into the Old Testament. I soon became bogged down with what I like to refer to as the “begat me” passages. So I moved to the New Testament. As soon as I began reading I knew this was what I was yearning for, this was what I had been needing. My soul had been starving, thirsting for knowledge, and my brother had led me to food and water. He had led me to God’s word, and that was a new awakening for me. I confess to not fully understanding everything that I read. I probably still don’t. I confess that I literally wondered who had followed Jesus around with the microphone recording all this that I was reading in that red letter edition knowing it was his spoken words. I was as innocent as one could have possibly been, accepting without question that I was reading God’s inspired word. That was many years ago. I am less innocent now, but the truth of what I believed then has not changed. I have read the whole Bible now, many times, in a variety of translations, and like most people, I suspect I discover something new every time I read it. But I shall never forget that first time I read with wide eyed wonder the teachings of Jesus. I no longer have that letter my brother wrote to me, but I do have the bookmark, and I keep it as a reminder of a time when I needed someone to point me in the right direction with a simple question. Are you reading your Bible?

Hebrews 4:12 (World English Bible)

¹² For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.