My uncle gave me a Bible for high school graduation. It felt like he was giving me a spanking. And I was perplexed, actually a little disappointed, because the Bible did not fit in the pile of gift cards I was accumulating to purchase things like a dorm room comforter (twin, extra long), but such is the case when we mistake material comforts for the comfort of God’s unfailing love.
Of course, the gift cards are long gone. Those dorm room furnishings? Not even memories. But that beautiful blue King James Bible sits as a treasure on my bookshelf.
Contextually this is also intriguing when I fast forward a few months to August 2000, and I am living in that college dorm room. It’s the first week of classes, and I get a phone call (landline, cordless) from my mom, who is frantically worried because something is amiss with my campus parking pass. To this day I have no idea what the issue was, a bureaucratic oversight or an unpaid bill, but I do remember trudging across campus in a homesick stupor to somehow beg and pay for the resident garage permit.
I think of this now and imagine if I had been reading that Bible, if I had been learning its voice and tone. Would I have handled the parking situation differently? Would I have viewed the systemic error as divine intervention to ask more critically discerning questions?
Do I even need my car here? I live on campus. I literally can – and should – walk everywhere. Where do I need to drive to? I didn’t even get my first college job until second semester, and that was less than a mile from campus.
But I wasn’t reading the Bible, and I didn’t ask those questions. Instead, I slapped that permit on my car, and when Latin homework got too hard or I was confronted with the reality that I lacked serious study skills, it was too easy to get in my car, drive, and listen to music. The ill-advised joys of youth seem all too common in a culture that teaches value and cheap thrill as synonyms.
Lately I have wondered if there were times in my life when God was pursuing me, and I blatantly ignored Him or simply did not recognize what was happening. Clearly in hindsight, I see that God was pursuing me with my uncle’s graduation gift; maybe I could not recognize it then but what I blatantly ignored was the gentle invitation from my uncle. What if I had asked him why he wanted to give me a Bible, why he thought I needed it, or more thoughtfully, if there was a particular part that he liked to read. Any suggestions where I should start? Those were opportunities missed and meaningful conversations never had.
The simple truth is that my uncle gave me the most important gift of my life: access to knowledge of the glory of the Lord, and the life-changing story of Jesus Christ.
Because ask me today, what’s the one thing you want to give young people, so they can navigate this world with dignity, discernment, and direction, and my answer is a no-brainer: friendship with Jesus.
My uncle died nine years later, and I never specifically thanked him for caring about my soul, for looking ahead and seeing the obvious pitfalls when you arrive at independence and adulthood without knowing who Jesus is or asking who you are called to be for Him.
Kids are smart and observant. So we might as well show them – talk to them – about the differences between going to church and following Jesus, between acting religious and living faithfully. Incongruencies, when ignored, riddle young hearts with doubt, fear, and anxiety.
Only by facing my fear did I rediscover the gift of fearing the Lord. Instead of hiding from an angry Father, I opened the pages and started pursuing the truth of His dearly beloved Son.
When I decided to read the Bible for myself (honestly I had to get a different translation; the King James is tough), l started to learn more about my true self in the gracious light of Scripture. I heard what we all long to hear – the Voice of Love.
And the funny thing about Love is that it requires nothing of us, only that we understand, cultivate, and share the value in-born within us, which is the Word.
