by: Sandy Domelle
Psalm 119:72, “The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.”
As a young child, my parents gave each of us a little New Testament to take to church to teach us the importance of carrying a Bible. I remember getting my very first Bible when I began to read, this was the entire Bible with the Old and New Testaments in it to use for church and devotions. When that Bible began to fall apart, I was given another one when I was in sixth grade, and I still have that Bible to this day. I have one more Bible that was given to me when I was a teenager getting ready to leave to go to the Philippines with my parents. That Bible had many special memories and many things written in it as it became a bit of a comfort to me as I went through many changes in my high school years.
When my parents went to the Philippines as missionaries, I left friends to find new friends; we changed foods, culture, climate, so many changes. My dad told me that with moving far away changes would come, and some might seem hard, but we would work through them together and that my Bible would be the one consistency that would not change. He said to run to God’s Word whenever you don’t understand something, are afraid, feel forgotten and homesick. My dad made this challenge to me as a 15-year-old girl, and those words have stayed with me all these years.
Memorizing the Bible was crucial to the Filipino people in our church because many of them never had the opportunity to own a Bible. They learned chapter after chapter just so they felt they had God’s Word in their heart, even if they couldn’t own a Bible. Here, we complain because our children need to learn a few verses per week for a test at school because we “don’t have the time to help.” As an adult, when was the last time you spent time memorizing Bible verses? Are you too busy for God’s Word? How precious and dear is God’s Word to you? It’s time we get back to memorizing it.
The older I get, the more precious and dear my Bible is to me. I guess it’s because we go through more, see the struggles of others, and realize the need of getting strength for each day. It’s what you run to for help, comfort, advice, and strength.
I’ve heard people say that they don’t have time to read their Bible because their work and family schedules conflict with finding time to read it. I’ve also heard people say that they feel their Bible time is useless. They say they get nothing from reading the Bible because they are in a hurry to read it so they can get out the door. It’s not how much you read that makes you a great Christian, but that you find time to read enough until it burns inside of you.
There have been days when I read my Bible, and I didn’t get much from it. But, as I went about my day and cleaned the house, ran errands or was sitting at a stoplight, something I read that morning came back, I started thinking about it, and it made all the sense in the world to me. Or, the preacher will get up and make a statement about something I read, and it pulled it all together for me. It’s just finding that special time each day to spend time reading and gleaning from the Bible what you can to help you.
Do you know there are times when the very thing I read that morning is the very thing that someone will come to me about for help. God knows what we need, and I know He helps me in the morning as I read the Bible to learn things that will help me be the source of strength and encouragement to others.
I think it’s important that we teach our children that God’s Word is precious and dear; NEVER forget that. I think it’s important to teach our children that the Bible is better than acquiring gold and silver. Here are a few things my parents taught us as children to show us the importance of Bible.
1. They made sure we never went to church without a Bible in our hands.
2. They made sure we read a small portion of the Bible every morning before we left for school.
3. They helped us memorize our verses for school.
4. They taught us never to leave the Bible lying around. Never lay the Bible on the ground and never put things on top of it.
5. They taught us that the Bible was the most special Book we would ever own and to treat it with love and respect.
6. They sang Bible verse songs with us.
7. We had family devotions each night, and we each had to read from our own Bible.
8. When I didn’t understand standards and convictions, they had us bring our own Bible to them, we would look up verses together, and they would have us mark the verse and write beside it to what the verse pertained. Ex: modesty, smoking, rebellion, etc.
9. They encouraged us to have preachers sign our Bibles. This helped me remember who preached youth revivals, special services and things that help change my life.
10. They made sure we knew that we only believed in the KJB.
There were many more things we could teach our children, but as a mother, we are to do all we can to help train our children in the right direction. Instilling the importance of spending time with the Lord in prayer and reading their Bible will be one of the most important character building lessons you can teach them.