Tear Up Your Bible
Let me share a personal story. In our house there is a living room. In that living room there is a sofa. On that sofa there are two books—a Bible and a prayer journal.
They are always near the sofa. Sometimes they rest atop the rounded sofa’s arms. Often they lay in tatters at the sofa’s feet, like a broken body mangled by a fall.
Quite Troublesome
These books were, for quite a while, very troublesome to me. They’ve been like ragdolls, knocked and kicked around by little hands and little feet. They’ve been scribbled in with permanent ink. Their pages have been torn.
I did not appreciate this.
Each time I would pass the sofa with these tattered books precariously placed on its arm, I would think:
“O what could have been! If only my wife would put her Bible out of reach from our children’s tiny hands, if only she would not place these precious books in such a precarious place, then certainly they would still be pristine! Just think, these could be preserved for future generations. Aren’t we called to care for what God's given?”
But as it is, they are marked and scarred; they’ve tumbled countless times and lay broken at the sofa’s feet. Books are an endangered species to tiny hands and tiny feet.
A Change of Heart
However, I’ve had a change of heart, and it came from considering an alternate reality. I imagined a world where there were no precious books for my children to see. I dreamed of no mother to be seen, daily in them, surrounded by tiny hands and little feet. I considered an existence where my children did not see their mother living out the Psalm:
“Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.” Psalm 119:97
Certainly a torn Bible is worth it, if the tiny hands and little feet see it used and obeyed.
If we have to buy a dozen replacements for these tiny hands and little feet to witness a mommy in daily surrender to the guiding light of God’s Word, then tear it up! We’ll get her another.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15