Today is a bittersweet day. I'm packing up my office.I hate packing. I despise packing. I loathe packing. It is sweaty, dusty, and monotonous.
But as I was packing up my gazillion Bibles earlier (I have an addiction to the physical form of God's Word), I came across two specific Bibles that broke the monotony, and caused me to pause and think.
The first is a beat up burgundy KJV printed by World Bible Publishers. On the front, in faded gold foil, is the text "DANIEL HOWELL." While it in no way compares in monetary value to an Allan or Cambridge, it is priceless to me.
That's because it is my first Bible.
Well, I say "first Bible," but what I really mean is that it was the first Bible that I actually remember carrying around and using. I, as a six-year-old, remember sitting next to my sister at our kitchen table on Sunday morning, September 6, 1992 (the date being inscribed on the presentation page), dressed for church services. My parents sat us down for a moment in order to give us Bibles. Of course, the (now) beat up burgundy Bible was the one they gave me.I carried it around for several years. It was the one I took to Bible class. It was the Bible from which first I memorized scripture. Eventually it started to fall apart, so my parents replaced it. But I held onto it.
The second Bible is an unassuming black KJV New Testament, also printed by World Bible. Just like the first, this one is priceless to me as well.
I know the exact date that I preached my first "official" sermon. It was Sunday, February 27, 2000. It was just shy of my fourteenth birthday. The reason I know that is because of this Bible.
You see, my dad gave it to me on the night I preached my first sermon. At the time, the last thing I wanted to grow up and become was a preacher. Well, maybe not the last—but at the time, it really wasn't on my radar as a "career choice."
But in that Bible, my dad (a preacher) wrote a note on the inside cover expressing how proud of me he was. He wrote that even if I never become a "full time" preacher like he was that...
"...You can do a great work for the Lord by filling a pulpit every time you have an opportunity. Love, Daddy"
A few years later I would do just that—filling in from time to time at the small congregation where my wife and I attended during our college years. That experience eventually led to my work with the Sweetwater church of Christ, my first "part time," then first "full time" local work.
As I paused in my packing, I stared at these two books together in my hand—as they had never been before—and thought this thought: "These Bibles are why I preach."
More specifically, what these Bibles represent are the reason I'm a preacher today. Of course I love God, and I want to teach and share the Gospel with others. That serves as the primary motivation for me being a preacher.
But if not for the first Bible, I wouldn't have developed the firm Scriptural foundation at an early age that I have built upon in order to serve God in the way that I now do.
If not for the second Bible (and what led to its reception), I probably wouldn't have the courage to preach.
That's because the Bibles came from parents who truly love God themselves, and who also sought to teach their children how to love and serve their glorious heavenly Father.
I pray I can successfully do the same for my children.
(4) "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (5) You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (6) And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. (7) You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7 ESV)
—Daniel
