The Bible I Still Have

This Sunday, we will place Bibles into the hands of our third graders, and it has me thinking about a Bible that was placed into my hands a very long time ago.

I still have my third-grade Bible. I received it back in the 1900s. Which sounds considerably more ancient than I would prefer.

Somewhere along the way, the cover wore, the pages aged, and the third grader whose name was written inside became a pastor still discovering what some of those words mean.

When my United Methodist church gave me that Bible, no one knew where my life would take me. I certainly didn’t. I didn’t know the joys I would experience, the people I would love, the losses I would carry, the questions I would ask, or the ways my understanding of God would continue to grow.

I was just a kid receiving a Bible, but my church believed that God had begun something in me.

This week, as we begin our new sermon series, Pressing On, I keep coming back to something Paul writes to the church in Philippi: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.” (Philippians 1:6)

When we place Bibles into the hands of our third graders this Sunday, we aren’t doing it because we expect them to understand everything inside. We certainly aren’t expecting them to have their faith figured out by the fourth grade. We give them a Bible because we trust that God is already at work in their lives. We trust that the God who has begun that work will keep working.

Some of those children may keep their Bibles for decades. The covers may become worn. Pages may get folded or marked. Hopefully there will be a few mysterious stains along the way that nobody remembers putting there. They will discover gifts they didn’t know they had, learn things about Jesus they have never heard, and ask questions about God they haven’t even thought of yet.

Just like I did. And still do.

As I look at that old Bible, I am grateful that God wasn’t finished with that third grader. And God isn’t finished with the 51-year-old pastor he became.

God isn’t finished with any of us.

Pressing on isn’t about finally getting everything figured out.  Maybe it is trusting that through every season of our lives, the joyful ones, the painful ones, the certain ones, and even the questioning ones, God is continuing the good work that began in us before we even knew it.

I hope you will be with us this Sunday as Aldersgate UMC places Bibles into some young hands, and we pray for all that lies ahead of them.

With Gratitude,

Rev. Rodney Whitfield
Senior Pastor
Aldersgate UMC