Beside me is a Bible. It's beat up. The spine is falling apart, there's tape down the cover, and a fair share of the Pentateuch (oddly in the neighborhood of Genesis 6-9) is water-damaged.
I don't read it as much as you think. I generally tote it around when I go places, hence the battle scars. But that's not to say I don't read it. I try to read it quite a bit. And I read it, knowing that many in my generation believe that the Bible is no more than a moralistic milkshake of homophobic sophistry and pithy peace proverbs.
But the Bible is so much more. It is, of course, a tool, a compass, a comforter, a sword, a friend. But if the Bible truly is invested with the Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16-17), this bruised and battered book beside me is a guide to the very heart of God.
So often I think we read the Bible as consumers. You want to know how to start a successful ministry, so you read Nehemiah. You want to buff up your Christian walk, so you flagellate yourself with James. You're having a crummy day, so you read Psalms. You're deciding whether to date, so you read 1 Corinthians 7.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The Bible is a blessedly practical book. But may my Bible be battered and broken because I have labored "with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me" (Col. 1:29) to suck from it every last scrap of Spirit-soaked truth of the knowledge of God. And may I, as I embark on this summer-long Scriptural marathon, be able to echo my favorite passage of Scripture: that "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things" (Phil. 3:8).
