Mark Twain and a Raging Bull

I'm not proud of this fact, but I haven't been reading my Bible much recently. How good is a missionary who doesn't read his Bible? Umm...

I've written on this before, my tendency to put my Bible down as I find it boring, difficult and just sort of a chore to read. But as a friend of mine once surmised, "Reading your Bible always seems like a bad idea until you pick it up and read." So true.

Yesterday as I was sitting in church, feeling like I was literally dying of boredom, the pastor said something that hit home. What do we say about the word of God when we leave it at home, collecting dust on some shelf? Are we not saying that we don't really believe it's important?

I tend to think like this: There's my Bible and it's antiquated reality and then there's my reality, and rarely the "twain" shall meet (I have no idea what twain means. Maybe it's a reference to Mark Twain. He's all over the place!). My reality seems more urgent, more real, demanding more of my attention. Heck, sometimes I just want to sit down with a fantasy novel and escape both realities, God and mine.

But the truth is that "The Lord is my light and my salvation, the stronghold of my life..." And if I'm to experience the joys of living life in a stronghold, I probably want to read about it.

I get so caught up in struggling with idolatry, materialism, greed, selfishness, ego, and the list is very very long, when I have a book that addresses all of these head on, like a bull charging a matador that forgot his red flag. It blasts through these issues. It literally consumes them.

Somewhere Paul encourages us to strengthen the weak and shore up the falling. I can think of no better way than digging into God's great book on Life with a capital L.

I forget every day that God loves me, so I leave his 6000 pg. love-letter on a shelf. I am a whore, but God loves this little whore, and will never, ever, ever abandon me, for I am his. Ironically this is probably the first thing I forget when I quit reading the Bible.

So that's it, I've got to get to his word today! May you too find in it what you're searching for. I bet you will.