”Thy word have I hid in mine heart, That I might not sin against thee.“
— Psalm 119:11
Every day growing up in the Christian school I went to we would say the pledge to the American Flag, the Christian Flag, and the Bible.
The pledge to the Word of God goes like this, “I pledge allegiance to the Bible, God’s Holy Word. I will make it a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I will hide its Words in my heart that I might not sin against God. Amen.”
Sadly, they were just words that fell out of my face every day for many years. God’s Word to me was really just a history book that a lot of people were really passionate about. It never really made sense to me. I mean, I knew it was a book that was supposed to change lives, as our Creator God inspired it into existence and had preserved its purity and power for generations, but all that still meant very little to me. So, life went on…
In my late twenties I was at a church service with my wife and something finally made sense to me. I had a sense that there was something much more powerful about this History Book that started at the actual beginning. I accepted Christ as my Savior that night … so, life went on …
I spent the next several years just doing like I had done in my younger years. God’s Word were words that just fell out of my face as I would read it or recite it on a very rare occasion. The preacher would tell me time and again how alive this History Book was, but it was never put into practice.
We would even recite the Pledge to the Bible sometimes in church and they were still just words falling from my face. Psalm 119:11 — “Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee” — still had little to no impact on my lif e… so, life went on.
Life going on always seemed to take me into some defeat … every time. In one of those defeats, well probable the most epic one, I turned to this History Book. I opened its pages and decided to seek the Author, and He showed up!
He breathed life into my wretched sinful soul that had let my life go on too many times. I am so happy to say that my life was forever changed that day! So, Real Life went on!
Just as God knelt down and breathed the breath of life into the dust He formed into Adam to make him a “living soul,” this History Book has been used by Author and Finisher of my faith to breath life into this mere stack of dust!
It is THE Book of History because it is His Story!
Let that simmer for a bit.
Larry Hof is pastor of Faith Baptist Church north of Greenfield. This weekly column is written by local clergy members.
