JANUARY 16, 2020

Selection from 2015

First an addendum:

Last night, my dog jumped up in my teeny-tiny kitchen onto my teeny-tiny stove and stole a sirloin steak from where it was resting in a cast iron skillet on the very back burners.

She is Persona Non Grata. 

How's your Bible holding up these days?  Dog-eared takes on explicit meaning when the family dog chewed up my Bible.  A few teeth-marks and gnawed on pages don't damage it beyond repair even if it's missing a page here and a half page there.  Now, it's more likely that my Bible is open beside me as our Springer, springs up on the couch and steps all over the pages before I can retrieve it.

"Do not give what is holy to dogs, 

and do not throw your pearls before swine,

lest they trample them under their feet.."

Matthew 7:6

Or how about the special thick edition of your NASV that is your favorite and left out only to be found as a coloring book by a friend's toddler?  Years later the scribbles bring fond memories of our families being together through thick and thin with a closeness from a bond of like faith built around the Word.

A very special Bible has been passed down through the family, thick, small, almost perfectly square and now fragile, brittle.  It has endured as a symbol of family heritage of godliness.

Perhaps the dog liked my Bible because it had my scent on the leather.  By chance could the toddler like the Bible as a scratch pad because it was out, used, and available?  Those who come after might appreciate a Bible that's been underlined with notes written in tiny letters beside special passages and find it useful for a road map.

Think of the brave people who translated, printed, and made available copies to the common people.  They were imprisoned and some martyred: it was a messy business with blood stained hands holding the precious Word of God.

Duct tape does wonders.  I don't want to run out and buy a new Bible because my old ones have all my special notations and are irreplaceable.  Who needs a pristine Bible anyway?  Maybe that's why we need to hid it away in our hearts for when it is not always in our hand.  He wants to write it on our hearts for when it is not always in our hand.  Maybe it's our hearts who are dog-eared and rumpled.  That's alright.  It should show when it is a much loved version that has been through thick and thin, has

been through the war-spiritual battles with us, whether we are thick or thin and wrinkled. "There is a peculiar beauty about godly old age-the beauty of holiness."  Alexander Smith

"The grass withers, the flower fades,

But the word of our God stands forever."

Isaiah 40:8