Next to Psalm 73 in my Bible, a beloved psalm of mine, is a simple note indicating the years 2003–2007, followed by assorted underlined verses and cross-reference notes in the margins of the psalm. A quote from famed theologian C.S. Lewis is parked in ink down by the latter verses.
There’s a printed copy of a letter that the late author and pastor Eugene Peterson wrote, which usually migrates from one section to another, serving as a bookmark for wherever I’m reading at the moment. The first chapter of Genesis is scribbled with notes and is complete with a flourish of creases on the pages. The once-silver-gilded edges are now faded and nearly gone from use and wear.
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| Poor Genesis 1 has seen better days. |
A select few verses are highlighted with actual highlighters, but I quickly grew an aversion to them because they bled through the page, so that habit didn’t last too long. My primary tools for underlining became ballpoint pens and the occasional pencil when I didn’t want to fully commit to the thought or the note.
Ezekiel 37 is a mess of notes. Next to Isaiah 43:18–19 are the names of three people, myself included, along with corresponding dates of when I prayed those specific verses for them and myself. A pink Post-it takes up a corner of the page on Exodus 33.
The entire front section starting from the publisher notes and the table of contents up to Genesis 50 is threatening to abdicate from the whole book, quite literally barely hanging on, as are the maps in the back. I’ve attempted to glue both sections back in multiple times, but they just keep threatening secession.
My Bible is just barely over twenty-one years old, a gift from my parents for Christmas 2004, during my sophomore year of college. As much as I am loath to retire this copy, I know it’s time to wave the white flag. It’s quite literally falling apart, with its binding stressed beyond its limits thousands of times over.
I purchased a beautiful new hardback Bible that has a different kind of binding (hello, smith-sewyn binding!) so that I don’t run into the same issue of nearly losing Genesis. The new one also has a wide-ruled margin, eagerly awaiting new notes, names, and dates. But I feel as though I am going to have to somehow pry my old copy out of my own hands—I don’t want to let it go.
We’ve been through so much together, me and my old Bible. College. Grad school. Friendships. Jobs. Travel. Heartache. Loss. Cancer. This copy of my Bible feels like an extension of myself. If someone had the time, I suppose they could probably trace the major events and relationships of my life through the notes scattered throughout it.
And while I am retiring this particular copy, I am reminded afresh that for those of us who are Christ-followers, we can never retire from the Word of God itself. This means we can never reach a point where we set it aside and simply say we’ve arrived at a certain destination in life, and therefore, the Bible has reached the pinnacle of use in our lives and we can let it go. We must continue to invest and invest, day after day, year after year, because there’s never a time when we are to stop investing in it and then start drawing upon the accumulation of existing wealth. We are to forever be investing in and drawing from the Word of God simultaneously.
Years ago, I saw this expressed through a sage woman named Esther, who lived in a village outside Nairobi, Kenya. She said something that is seared into my brain. For context, I’ve done two short-term stints in Kenya, both times in the same village and both times with the Rafiki Foundation. Back in 2010 and 2012 when I went, they had about 100 orphans under their care in that particular village. Boys and girls were separated into cottages, about ten children per cottage. Every evening, each cottage would hold devotions, which were a time of singing hymns, reading Scripture, and praying. It was a precious time of day, and I loved visiting a different cottage each night. The mamas, the ones tasked with raising the children, would lead this time of devotions.
I went to Joppa cottage one particular night, led by Mama Esther, a stout, stoic Kenyan woman. She ran a tight ship with her ten boys, who were a total handful. Everyone was expected to be in his pajamas and properly in his seat by 7:00 pm. Little barefoot black and brown toes hung over the edges of the seats; for some, their little legs weren’t even able to touch the ground. It was a special night that night—some of the boys were to receive their very own copy of the Bible, which they didn’t get until they reached a certain age.
Before she started handing out Bibles to the boys, she held up one Bible very slowly. I could tell she was gearing up to deliver some serious words. She looked very carefully and intently at each of the boys and said deliberately, in her thick Kenyan accent, "Don't ever go to sleep without knowing where this is," holding up the Bible. She paused, as if gathering steam, her voice taking on a low, purposeful tone, deep with conviction. I knew she wasn’t messing around with whatever her next words would be. "If you wake up in the middle of the night and don't know where it is, you get out of bed and go find it. And you do not rest until you have found it again."
Each sentence was punctuated by the intensity of her voice. Those boys knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she took the Word of God seriously, and they were to do the same.
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| Mama Esther in all her floral glory |
And yet, there I was, convicted beyond measure. For all intents and purposes, I am an affluent, well-educated, white woman from America who has multiple copies of the Bible in multiple translations and formats, both digital and print. Not only that, I have it in my own native language. I have a gross abundance of access to the Word of God. I bought a new copy of the Bible that contains all the books, simply because my old one was falling apart. With a few clicks of a button, voilà! There it is on my doorstep. There are some people in this world who would die for a single page of the Bible, let alone a complete copy. And yet how often do I esteem it so lightly, finding far more entertaining things to do and taking it for granted?
Mama Esther’s words weren’t for those boys; they were for me.
Perhaps they are for you, too. Perhaps you, like me, have numerous copies of the Bible. Or maybe you have a single copy of the Bible. Maybe you have a pristine copy gathering dust on the shelf. Maybe you have one that is also falling apart like mine. Maybe you read it today. Maybe you haven’t read it in years.
Mama Esther’s words—and mine—are not words of guilt or condemnation, words meant to bury us under accusation. But may they be words of exhortation and conviction, words that lift us beyond our own complacency and apathy, words meant to incite a kind of urgency within us.
Whatever the version, whatever the condition, whatever the age, whatever the length of time since you last picked it up. I pray you don’t ever ‘retire’ from the Word of God or turn it out to pasture, releasing it from having a meaningful presence in your life. Keep making investments. Keep picking it up. Keep choosing it. It will pay dividends in return and it comes with a high amount of compounding interest. God promises that it will be so. You can take that to the bank.
"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
