Did you know that on average, 87% of households in the United States own a Bible? Yet, a survey found that 50% of people who own Bibles only open them to read once or twice a year, if at all. Only 11% of those surveyed said that they read the Bible daily. Billions of copies of the Bible have been produced and sold, and it is almost always the top-selling book each year… but how many people are actually reading it?
Even though my family didn’t go to church or practice any Christian faith, we always had a Bible in our home growing up. It was a big, green book with fragile, crinkly pages and it sat inside a glass-fronted bookcase in the corner of the living room. I would pull it out every so often and thumb through it, mostly to look for the dried flowers and other little mementos that had been pressed between the pages. Growing up, I loved to read – I always had a book in my hands. This book, however, was something that I occasionally looked at with reverence but never tried to actually read. It served as nothing more than a placeholder on the shelf – a rarely touched decoration, just collecting dust.
When I got a little older, someone gifted me a different kind of Bible… a Teen Study Bible. This book was smaller than our big green Bible and looked a lot more current. It had bright colors and little boxes with personal stories and commentary throughout. I had grown curious about the Bible but every time I opened it to read, I was left with a lot more questions than answers. I had nowhere to go with those questions. The one church that I briefly attended in high school told me to just believe what they were teaching; questions and doubts were for troublemakers and faithless people. My colorful study Bible sat on the dresser in my bedroom for years, rarely opened. This book felt impersonal, distant, overwhelming… foreign. The stories contained within the Old Testament didn’t feel applicable to anything in my life, my school, my family, or any part of the world around me. They were nothing more than that, in my teenage opinion – just stories, like any other fiction novel and fairy tale I had read.
By the time I reached college, I was very cynical toward anything relating to the Christian faith. I remember finding a Bible inside a rental home that I was moving into with my roommates and joking that I was going to go burn it in the backyard (I didn’t do it). By that time in my life, the Bible – this book that I had never actually read, except for a few verses taken out of context – had become a representation of everything that I stood against. Hypocrisy, being judgmental of others, lack of critical thinking, blind belief based on nothing concrete. I thought the Bible was nothing more than a collection of very old stories and irrelevant, outdated rules from a wrathful, cruel, and manmade God. My worldview was 100% shaped by the culture around me, always changing and always criticizing anything that challenged it. I preached tolerance and open-mindedness but had none to offer to anyone who said they believed in the Holy Bible.
I always had many, many questions about life. About things that had happened in my life and in other people’s lives… about my identity and my purpose for living… about my past and my present and my future. I spent many years searching for meaning, purpose, and answers everywhere BUT in the Bible. I always felt like something significant was missing from my life but I wasn’t sure what it was. I kept trying to “follow my heart” and look inward for direction. I was constantly in search of truth, and I believed that everyone had their own truth to define, even if that truth was constantly changing and evolving.
Until one summer in college, when I was out living my life with a fake smile on my face and a complete stranger stepped in front of me to hand me a flyer for her church. “We’d love to have you join us,” she said.
I don’t remember her face, but I think about her every June. I think about her pink flyer and how I dropped it at her feet as I said something rude in response and kept walking.
I think about how five seconds of her life, handing that paper to me on a sidewalk in the park, was the catalyst for the biggest change in my own life.
Because in that exact moment, I felt my heart break wide open and I became so overwhelmingly aware of my own brokenness and my need for a Savior. I undeniably knew what my life was missing, even if I couldn’t totally put the words to it and didn’t quite know how to find it. Within the next month, I had walked away from every part of the life I had built and found myself living all alone in a grungy little apartment with very eclectic neighbors (I’ll never forget you, Skulls). And while moving into that apartment, I started digging through my belongings and found something that I had been carrying around in a box of mementos. A tiny little copy of the New Testament that had been gifted to me as a baby.
I opened it up and started reading straight through the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John… I couldn’t stop reading. I was fascinated. I went to the bookstore and bought a new study Bible, determined to actually read this book that I had been actively avoiding for my whole life. My life was a complete and total mess, and my heart was hurting, but God was speaking and I was finally listening.
The more I read, the clearer things became. The more I read, the less this book felt foreign, impersonal, overwhelming. The more I read, the more I realized how very, very wrong I had been about the nature of God and what it actually meant to follow Christ. I related so much to some of the stories that I read and some of the people that I read about. I felt a sense of peace come over me when I would spend time reading this book, like I had never experienced before.
I kept studying the Bible that summer and started going to church – something I previously swore I would never, ever do again. That fall, all alone in my apartment, I prayed to surrender my life to Christ – I prayed for help overcoming my doubts and for God to use me for His purposes for the remainder of my life. A year prior, this would have seemed completely insane to me… but as the Bible says, “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18)
Opening that Bible and continually seeking after the Lord through His Word changed my entire life (and continues to do so today). This book is no longer impersonal or foreign to me. God is no longer impersonal or foreign to me. The Bible is “alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword… dividing soul and spirit… judging the thoughts and attitudes of my heart.” (Heb. 4:12)
I love this excerpt from a writing by Sr. Priscilla Solomon, thinking more about Hebrews 4:12 –
“It is a Living Word, a word vibrant with life, a word that carries the power of life, and the power of transformation, a persistent word – a word that is active in us until our very spirit and soul, joints and marrow are divided or parted; that is, until death. It is also a sobering word with the warning that I cannot live a double life. My thoughts and intentions must be aligned with God’s desires and my action must express that alignment. My thoughts and the intentions of my heart will be judged by the very God-Word that lives and acts in me. This is a call to grow in conscious awareness of my thoughts, intentions, emotional responses and actions toward everything and everyone around me. It is the call to transformation and conversion. It is an invitation to see myself and all others as: ‘The one in whom he delights!’ – His beloved.”
Maybe someone reading this is feeling some of these same things and isn’t sure where to turn. Maybe you’ve grown up with a similar experience, never really reading the Bible for yourself or only certain parts of it taken out of context. Maybe you’ve allowed yourself to grow numb to the idea of God and a source of truth in the Bible. Maybe you’re searching for answers or not sure what truth really means anymore.
Or… maybe you go to church every week but your Bible sits on a table or shelf in your house, only opened every so often. Maybe your life is feeling overwhelming and hectic and you think you don’t have time to fit in Bible study. You have time for everything else on your to-do list, but that’s the one thing that keeps falling to the wayside. Maybe it’s easier to turn to what’s more comfortable or entertaining. Maybe you’re only willing to hear from God on your time and at your own convenience… after all other options have been exhausted. Been there, done that.
I want to gently encourage you today. You, who might be curious about the Bible or wondering if God exists, but you’re turned off to the idea because of things people have said or done to you in the past. I get it – I’ve been there. People who do harmful, hurtful things in the name of Jesus do not cancel out the truth found in God’s Word. You, who might feel like life is just too busy right now to fit in Bible study. Is anything worth neglecting knowing the God of the Bible, who loves you with an everlasting heart and is always ready and waiting for you to finally come to Him?
You, who might feel like something is missing from your life and you’re just not sure what it is. You’re not sure who you’re meant to become or what your purpose is in life. You, who might be a lifelong Christian but you’ve been relying on other people to interpret the Bible for you instead of reading it for yourself. You, who might be feeling overwhelmed or hurt or worried about the future or all alone in this world…
Open your Bible. Start reading. Pray for God to help you understand as you read. Ask for Him to reveal his heart through His Word. Pray that God would remove the distractions and temptations surrounding you and instead fill you with a deep hunger to know Him better through His Word. Daily devotions, weekly sermons at church, Christian-based videos and podcasts are all great tools to help us grow in our faith, but they should never be a replacement for the Word of God.
There is a source for truth, and a source for the hope, peace and contentment that you are seeking.
Matthew 7:7 says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
God is real, and he is speaking. He wants a relationship with you – no matter who you are or what you’ve done. Spend time with him in his Word today.
Kristen Stewart, Writer 