I'm sitting here at my desk in the library. My homework is open in front of me. Am I doing it? Nope. I got antsy so I got up and started taking a tour of this library that I spend so many hours in. I started thinking....how many Bibles are here in this very room? Shelves upon shelves, some in English, some in various other languages. How easy it is for me to forget what a huge deal it is to have a Bible in my language. And here I sit procrastinating about reading it when there are millions of people who would love to have even one book of the Bible translated into their language.
This picture is of a board that covers a wall in our school hallway with the country, tribe, and population count of all the people groups that still do not have a Bible in their language and are mostly unreached with the Gospel. 2,500 of them. And here I sit in a room with tons of books that are either Bibles or they have something to do with Scripture and teaching the reader more and more about our wonderful God. Why in the world God chose to save me and bring me here to sit here surrounded by His teaching, I have no idea. I am so undeserving. But I know that I must make every endeavor to make good use of the time that He has given me and take in as much of His Word that I possibly can. The good news is that the Word of God is a never-ending supply of learning, blessing, and instruction. The more I learn, the more I can share.Right before I began typing this entry, I was looking in our special "reference" section of the library. These books aren't allowed to be taken from the library and have to be used under supervision here. I never really looked at them until today, but I was completely fascinated. I've always been fascinated by Old books and this section was full of 'em. There were books from the early 1800's! I started looking through them and just thinking about all of the people who had held the same book in their hands almost 200 years ago, people who are rejoicing before the throne of God now. I came across one book that was written about 1 Corinthians, published in 1885. Every few pages in the book, the author had included blank pages for his readers to take notes on. As I flipped through the pages, I was blown away as I read page after page of the previous owners notes, written in beautiful handwriting. Here was a man that lived over a century ago and as he studied the Word of God, the Lord was teaching him the exact same things that I'm learning right now. It's hard enough for me to think that the Bible has been around for centuries, but I guess it never dawned on me that for centuries people have been pouring over the exact same words that I am now. I guess I've always thought about the existence of Scripture in terms of time, not people. For years and years they have been learning about, struggling through, and rejoicing over the same concepts and blessings that I am going through right now. God has so wonderfully and graciously preserved His love letter to us, speaking to every heart, and changing every life of every person who will believe in Him. He is never-ending. He is constant. He is never failing. And God and His Word are never ever changing.
2 comments:
I wish book makers would do this today. I have found that the columns in most books have no space for notes. Even our bibles usually have small borders to write in.
Thanks for sharing, this is really cool
wow that's so amazing. i think it's great to be able to behold the thoughts of others as they read the word. I think of how had not those who fought for the word to keep and preserve it and God's will for it's preservation-- how blessed we are to also then hold his words and those after us... those after us is who we learn, read and preach the word for.. hey grace in a few hundred years they'll be another pondering who's held what you've held..and that person you can call brother or sister
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