Friday, May 2, 2008

Taking my Bible for granted

I received an e-mail, recently, from a facebook friend, Eddie, who is serving the Lord in the Middle East and is asking for prayers for the persecution they are experiencing and requested leaving the location of where he is out of any info that I'd be willing to pass along.

He was sharing with me how it is illegal to possess a holy Bible and that he and some friends were arrested for handing them out. He also shared with me how he was able to get a Bible to a man in prison and how this man was able to share it with the men he is imprisoned with by tearing out pages and handing them out. One man memorized all of Psalm 119, word for word, before he had to eat his page, or be caught with it and face punishment.

As I was reading this e-mail I started to feel guilty because I have at least a half dozen Bibles in my home and I have all I can do to stick to my daily reading plan. I find time to do all of these other things that are important and then try to squeeze my devotion time into a ten to fifteen minute span at some point during my day. I wonder how well I'd do if, suddenly, it became illegal in America to possess, much less read my Bible. I take such things for granted; the fact that we live in a free country where freedom of speech, religion, etc. are among our "inalienable rights."

Hearing Eddie's story caused me to stop and think and pray and to thank God for what I have and to pray for those who face oppositon daily simply for carrying a page of Scripture (not even a whole Bible).