Dear Rose Park,
I like a good bargain; I take that back, I love a good bargain. This past Monday was the annual Book Nook sale in the basement of Herrick District Library. The sale was this: fill a bag, any size bag, with books, DVD’s, or CD’s and it’s $5. You read that correctly. ANY size bag for $5. Needless to say, I was in the basement of the library for a good hour filling up a bag.
I wasn’t the only one. The place was packed. I saw one woman fill duffle bags with cookbooks, another man purchase the entire collection of David Baldacci, an elderly woman with arms filled with romance novels, and a young boy asking every available librarian, “do you have any Captain Underpants books?” It was a hopping place to say the least. But I noticed something; in the ‘religious section’ most of the books relating to Christianity seemed to be in pristine condition. While the works of James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, and Nora Roberts had tattered pages and crinkled covers, the devotionals, theological works, and other supplementary texts to God’s Word had strong spines and neat pages, leading me to believe they had never been opened let alone read.
I don’t want to look too far into this, but I wonder what this says about our appetite for God’s Word and spiritual maturity. Be honest, when’s the last time you read a page or chapter of the bible? When’s the last time you made the commitment to read a devotional everyday? When’s the last time you kept that same commitment and saw it through? I can remember one of my seminary professors making the tongue-in-cheek comment, “never trust a pastor without a well-worn psalter.” In other words, our bibles and devotionals should have fingerprints, pencil marks, highlights, tears, and coffee stains all over them. I hope and pray that these texts aren’t collecting dust on our shelves or being used as paperweights.
As another academic year is just around the corner, perhaps you might consider going back to school in God’s Word. You don’t have to start at the first page of Genesis, but simply start. Jump into the story of Moses or Samuel, the book of Psalms or Proverbs, one of the Gospels, or even one of Paul’s letters. I’d also encourage you to pick up Eugene Peterson, C.S Lewis or Barbara Brown Taylor to gain a greater perspective on the work of God through the people of God. Whether it’s the bible or a supplementary text, I know I have too many books on my shelf with strong spines instead of well worn pages, and I’d imagine you do as well.
Let’s make the commitment together over the next few months to dive into these books so that our eyes might see and our ears might hear about this tremendous God we serve.
Grace & Peace,
Pastor Mark