Resources

God has given us such an abundance of resources, and every day I find myself taking them for granted.
Today's point: the BIBLE!!!

I love my Bible. It's wrapped in duct tape and written on, inside and out. It was the first Bible I got after I was saved, and I plan on keeping it for the rest of my life if it doesn't completely fall apart on me. So it is physically, tangibly important to me; I literally feel comforted when I'm holding it in front of me. I almost always have it with me. Aside from that, of course it's vital to my life and relationship with God.
Somehow, I never used to think that reading it on a consistent basis was important. It has honestly taken me 2 or 3 years to understand how important the Bible is. I had finally gotten into the habit of reading it (nearly) every night before bed. But over the past two weeks with school ending and moving in with Jennica and getting ready for CHRISTmas and all of the chaos, I've fallen out of that habit. I won't act like those are valid excuses; I just let myself get distracted. And every night, wherever I am, I get into bed and at the very last minute I think "Oh dang, I probably should've just taken an extra 10 or 15 minutes to read a chapter." Over the past 2 weeks, I've probably taken the time to really read my Bible twice (finally finished Matthew tonight). That sucks. And I can physically feel the effect it has on me. I can feel a gap starting form in my relationship with God as the number of days I skip increase.

God inspired the words of the Bible, and the authors were smart enough to actually write them down and pass them on. He took the time to give us valuable, life-giving information. He gave us a weapon. One that I don't pick up and use nearly enough. There are beautiful words stored in the pages of the Bible that can win an argument so much faster than anything we could come up with on our own. There's love and grace and life. There are answers. The Bible is probably our greatest tangible resource. It's also probably the resource I take for granted the most. I know I have so much to learn from it, and I consistently push it aside and leave it behind. But I'm learning.