Many years ago I had an opportunity to speak at the church in Cheyenne where I was raised and had attended all of my life. It was a ladies function and the men of the church were serving and working in the kitchen. I noticed that all during my talk my dad was leaning against the back wall listening and smiling. It wasn’t often he got to hear me. Afterward, several women approached me before leaving and gave me a hug and said, “Surely the Lord sent you to us today.” When we got home, my dad gave me a hug and said, “I just wanted to hug the woman God sent.” It meant a lot to me, and it was the only hug I could ever remember getting from my father. We were not a hugging family while I was growing up, and church was always pretty formal, so I had to learn about hugging as an adult—and now you can’t stop me!
Later that evening my dad wanted to show me something special that he had. He went to the hall closet, and on the top shelf was a box with a book in it, wrapped in paper. My dad was so proud of that book; it was a beautiful new Bible, never even opened. He received it years before and just wanted to show me how nice it was. Yes, it was beautiful, but he had never even read a page of it in the years since he got it. I felt so sad that he had that wonderful book and had never even used it. My dad had been in church almost every Sunday of his life, but he never really knew much about the Bible and how much it could enrich his life.
Years later, I was spending time with my folks because my dad was extremely ill. One morning I asked him how he was doing, and he said, “I’m scared.” I asked him why and he said, “I don’t know where I’m going.” He knew his time was short. That morning I had been reading in my Bible in my Quiet Time in John 14, “Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me.”
That morning I explained to my dad that Jesus was preparing a place for him, and I explained that Jesus had died for him, for the forgiveness of his sins, and he wanted my dad to spend eternity with Him. I asked him if he had ever prayed to receive Jesus into his heart and he didn’t remember; so, I asked him to pray along with me to receive Christ into his heart and thank Him for dying on the cross for the forgiveness of his sins, and to give his Life to Him. He prayed with me, and we visited a little more about Jesus and then I let him rest. The pastor from their church came over that afternoon and gave him communion and spent time with him and after that my dad said he was “eased.”
I was so thankful that morning that I had my Bible with me, and God had given me the Scripture He wanted me to use for my dad. God had that day planned. And my Bible that they gave me years before was practically my workbook—it has color-coded passages, dates of family praises and births, and margins full of answered prayer! But it has given me such comfort over the years as I read and study and get so excited over what God has done over the years! I can’t imagine leaving it in a closet on the top shelf and not knowing where I am going when my time comes.
My Mom had always loved the Lord and had taught Sunday School and Bible School and served in the church all her life and used her Bible and had her own beautiful hymnal which she loved. But my dad was always just there as a prop. I wonder as I look around in church how many people are like my dad and don’t really know where they are going. Many years ago, people didn’t open up about their beliefs and we didn’t know where they stood. But today we need to be learning, growing, and understanding how important our relationship with Christ is before we lose the freedom, we have to profess our faith in public and worship God in our churches.
It’s my prayer that we look around and see if there is someone right around us that needs to know more about Jesus and the love, He has for us and the incredible help He offers us through the Bible. We can’t take it for granted, there’s too much at stake today in our changing world. Jesus desires that all would come to the saving knowledge of Christ.
1 Timothy 2:1-5 “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings, and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all men…”
