"I promise I'll read it!"

God did something crazy to me on Friday.

tl;dr - I gave my awesome new Bible away to a complete stranger on the bus.

Long version:

The Setting

When I come home to New Jersey from Maryland, I take a 45-minute bus ride from my apartment to the Amtrak station, and then I take the train home. Yesterday on the bus, I was reading my awesome new Bible. I read Matthew 11, which was about how John the Baptist was rebuked by Jesus. "Blessed is the man who is not offended because of me." I then read Joshua 5 and 6, which was about the mass circumcision of all the Israelite kiddies, Joshua's encounter with the commander of the Lord's army, and finally the fall of Jericho. What I have been getting most out of Joshua is the obedience that everyone displays. Joshua obeys God faithfully, and the people obey Joshua without question. I was stunned at how Joshua basically told everyone to shut up while they marched around the city, and they did! Holiness through obedience.

The Setup

Suddenly, one of the guys nearby sitting on the bus poked me. He was a 41 year old black man wearing a t-shirt and shorts named Donell. Donell asked me, "Is that a Bible you're reading?" I told him it was. "You go to church?" I told him I went every week. "That's good, that's good." He said he doesn't really go to church anymore. He then asked me "When you get a chance, just remember me in your prayers." I asked him if there was anything specific he wanted me to pray for him about. "To make my path straight. I haven't really been on the straight path, but pray that God will give me a straight path. And to give me a good job." I said I would do that for him, and we talked briefly about God when he got a phone call and started talking on the phone. While he was talking on the phone, I went to go look for the "Trust in the Lord with all your heart.....and he will make your paths straight" passage that I knew was in Proverbs, but I couldn't remember the chapter and verse. Miraculously, when I opened my Bible to Proverbs I opened right to the correct spot and saw it immediately. Fastest verse search ever.

At this point, I was really hoping I could pray for him right there on the bus, and maybe share the gospel more explicitly using the Proverbs passage, but he started talking about his family and football (he's a big Ravens fan), so we talked about how awesome the Eagles did in the off-season and how bad Miami's management is. We talked about Sean Taylor and how he died.

The Act

Sean Taylor was the last topic we talked about before we began pulling into the Amtrak station. Suddenly, I felt the urge to give him my Bible. No. This can't be from God. It's from me. The urge was too strong. This is my brand new Bible. I bought it for $20.00. He probably won't read it anyways. I wanted to read it on the train. I really didn't want to give him my Bible. We were pulling up to the station, so I needed to make the decision. Maybe he'll have his own Bible or maybe he won't want my Bible.

"Do you have a Bible at home." "I do, and I don't." Uhh...what? The bus was going to come to a stop soon. I needed to make a decision. "Do you want my Bible?" "I feel bad for taking your Bible. Do you have another Bible for yourself?" "Yeah, I have a lot of other Bibles. But if I give you my Bible, you gotta promise to read it." "Okay I will. Write your name in it, so I can know who gave it to me." I was really running out of time, because the bus was basically at the stop. I scribbled my name in the front cover, and as I was frantically gathering my things to get off the bus, I opened to Proverbs 3:5 that I had previously bookmarked, basically shoved the Bible in his hands, and told him to read the Proverbs passage. As I took my stuff and walked off the bus he proclaimed again, "I promise I'll read it!".

The Reflection

As I walked into the Amtrak station, I was still shell-shocked at what just happened. I stood there a little dazed, before I remembered I needed to go print out my ticket. I printed out my ticket, sat down, and pulled out my journal and prayed. Here are some of the things that God showed me in that time of prayer and reflection, nicely organized so it's not just a crazy cluster of all the thoughts that were racing through my head.

"It isn't sacrifice until it hurts"

I'm not sure where I heard this saying (my guess is Urbana), but as people living in the US, giving has become really easy, and we can comfortably give money without much sacrifice. Even though the Bible cost only $20, it hurt a lot more than giving away a 20 dollar bill would. It's somewhat strange to me how giving away a Bible could be so painful when giving away $40 or $50 might actually be less painful, and I asked myself why I was so upset about losing my Bible. I gave away something that I wanted, something that was dear to me. I also had planned on reading it in the train station and on the train, so I also sacrificed my plans for the next few hours. I gave away something that I loved, and the thought of it being in the hands of another man scared me because I didn't know if he would actually read it or treat it well. I felt a lot like Larry, when his hairbrush was taken - Take caaaaaaare of my Bible. Take caaaaaaare, oh my Bible. Take care, take care, don't dare not care, take care, nice hair, no fair. Take care, caaaarreeeeeee of my Bible.



This realization that such a little thing could get me all riled up really revealed a lot of inner weakness inside of me. If I couldn't give away a little thing like a Bible, how can I give away bigger things to God - things like my career, my future, my future kids? It dawned on my the huge faith it must have taken Hannah to very literally give away her son to the Lord. I have trouble giving away an inexpensive Bible, but she had to give away her firstborn and only son! God demands my firstfruits, and I need to be able and willing to give them to Him.

I need to trust God

I think much of my distress stemmed from a doubt: "Did I do the right thing?" What if Donell never used the Bible? What if he just forgets and leaves the Bible on the bus? What if it starts raining and the Bible gets all wet? I needed to make the conscious decision to not think about these doubts and just in God's sovereignty, that God is in control and his wisdom is infallible.

God is sovereign and has prepared me for this moment.

This is by far the biggest thing that I got out of this whole experience. Once I sat down in the train station, Scripture that I read and memorized in the last few days and weeks came flooding back to me. On the bus, I was read Matthew 11 and Joshua 5,6. As I've been reading Joshua, I've been struck by the obedience displayed by Joshua and all the Israelites. In Joshua 6, Joshua obeys everything that the commander of the Lord's army commands him to do. Joshua then tells all his people to not say a word as they marched around Jericho. We take that for granted sometimes, but Jericho was an enormous city, and it must have taken a long time to walk around it once, not to mention seven times. If I was an Israelites, I definitely would have grumbled or complained, but none of them did. And the walls came tumblin' down. My takeaway from reading Joshua so far is to always obey God, the first time. It's funny how God prepared my heart to obey him, even when I really didn't want to.

Some of the verses that came to mind:

Matthew 11:6 - "Blessed is the one who is not offended by me."

Matthew 10:39 - "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

Joshua 3:5 - "Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you."

Matthew 10:28 - "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."

God is using his Word to help me increasingly grow in His likeness, and it was really cool seeing how the Scripture that I've been reading and memorizing has actually affected my thinking. I need to continually consecrate myself in expectation of the amazing things that the Lord will do in my life.

"Trust and obey, for there’s no other way

To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."

[This post is describing events that happened on Friday, August 5th, while the large majority of the post was written on the day after that.]