(Goes With RSK Lesson 1)

My morning routine…my favorite part of the day: sitting down with the Best Book in the World, making my way every year from ‘in the beginning’ to ‘even so come Lord Jesus.’

It never gets old. I never get tired of it.
I’m so very humbled and grateful that

The LORD, the Mighty One, is God…and he has spoken!
Our God approaches—and he is not silent.
—Psalm 50:1,3

That’s the essence of this Book. He makes the effort. He comes to us. He doesn’t leave us guessing about who He is. Not only does He approach…and speak…He invites us to call on him when we’re in trouble—and He’ll come to the rescue! [Psalm 50:15] How very blessed we are!

Changes have shaken our world in the years I’ve been writing these lessons. We’ve seen stock markets peak and crash, earthquakes crumble cities, hurricanes wreak havoc, a pandemic shut down the world’s greatest economies… What never changes is The Book. My copy has a few more underlines… exclamation points… hearts… tear stains. But the message is still blessedly the exact same message God’s people have been reading for centuries.

Grass withers.
Flowers fade.
But God’s Word remains forever.

And somehow, the more familiar it is, the more precious it is. You know what I mean. It’s the only thing that increases in value year after year.

My granddaughter Ella savors proverbs these days.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, she notes sagely, as we sort through a cupboard.
I was thinking how true that is about our Book, too.
Millions ignore it.
Worldly philosophers dismiss it.
King Jehoiakim brazenly sliced up his copy and fed it to his winter fire. [Jeremiah 36:1, 23-24]
Dictatorial governments have banned it.
Cardinal Wolsey condemned William Tyndale as a heretic and demanded his arrest for translating it. Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake for that ‘crime.’

Feared, reviled, rejected, ignored. Less than nothing to some.
Priceless treasure to us who feast on it.
Some treasures are hidden under beds or buried in fields or lost at the bottom of the sea or locked up tight in bank vaults.
Ours is between the covers of One Small Book.

Mercifully, we don’t have to wonder or conjure or try to imagine what the One True God is like.
He’s a Revealer. A Communicator. Our Father—who wants us to know Him.
And this Book is our connection to His heart.

We hear there His words. His hopes. His plans. How he feels about things.
What he treasures.
And we wouldn’t trade it for all the gold on the planet.

What more could we want for our kids?