Not Your Typical Church Lady – The Unopened Box

"Your word is a lam to my feet and a light for my path."

~Genesis 33:4 (NIV)

Once upon a time, when we were first married, the house we rented needed a new antenna. Let me pause here and explain what that was: an antenna was a metal concoction people used to put on the roof back in the old days so we could watch TV. Cable (which was another way to watch TV back then, when dinosaurs roamed the earth) was not available on the road we lived on, so my husband went to a hardware store to buy a new antenna.

When he bought it, they also gave him a free extra box because for a limited time, anyone who bought an antenna got an extra box. The box said Prime Star and we didn't know what that was and we were pretty sure we didn't need it. We figured that it probably involved calling someone for installation, waiting around for a technician and basically wasting a whole day on an unknown variable. We just knew that we needed the antenna so we went home and put the antenna up on the roof and put the box in the basement. We lived down in a dip so with the help of the antennae we were able to get one channel on our TV. One. But we didn't care, one was all we needed. For two years, the Prime Star box sat unopened in our basement. And for two years, we only had channel 10 (which was nothing new for us since growing up I only had one channel, anyhow.)

Then one day, my husband remembered the box and out of curiosity, he opened it. What do you think was in it? EVERYTHING we needed to get satellite television. It had a dish, a receiver, a remote and even batteries for the remote. And you could do it all yourself! It was his scheduled day off work so he decided to install it. When I got home from work that day, we had 200 channels on the TV and it wasn't even fuzzy! We didn't have to climb up on the roof to move the antennae anymore! (You used to have to climb on the roof every now and then to adjust the antenna so it would pick up your one channel. One person would climb onto the roof and move the antenna around while the other person opened a window and yelled up to them "GETTING BETTER! NO! GO BACK, THAT'S TOO FAR!")

We were so amazed at all the things we could watch! We never had anything like it in our lives! Then we laughed at ourselves because for TWO YEARS all of this was at our fingertips and we just let it sit unopened in the basement because we didn't know what it was and thought it was too involved.

Guess what? This happens in other houses, too. But it's not a box that says "Prime Star" (known today as DirecTV.) It's a book that says "Holy Bible." How many of you have Bibles in your houses? Do you ever look at them or read them? Lots of people have Bibles, but they hardly ever open them up to see what's inside. Perhaps you are like we were with the TV. Perhaps you think, "We already have what we need. We don't need more." That's what we thought with our one channel. But if you open your Bible up and READ it, there are all sorts of wonders and answers and examples inside.

Maybe you're thinking "I can't read it on my own. It's too complicated." If you're intimidated by "thee's" and "thou's" guess what? They make Bibles in regular speech! My preferred translation for every-day reading is the New International Version, or "NIV." If you are brand new to Bible reading, that's the version I'd recommend. And like the satellite, this is something you can work on when it suits your schedule. You don't have to wait for a technician to come and install it for you. You can begin to read it anytime.

The more you read it, the more you will understand, and no matter how many times you read it, you will always learn something new. I love to read mine. I read it every single morning. It never stops teaching me and amazing me. But it's no good UNLESS YOU OPEN IT. Make the time every day to read a little bit. If you have never read the Bible before and it feels like it's too much and too overwhelming, get a copy of The One Year Bible (also available in NIV.) It will help guide you on what to read each day. It breaks the reading down into small bite-size increments that anyone can handle.

Our Bibles are a treasure. Delving into them and learning as much as we can by reading them deepens our relationship with God. It says to God, "You matter to me too, and I want to know more. Teach me. Speak to me."

If you want to keep struggling to climb up on the roof and move the antenna around while someone hollers out the window to you, go ahead. I can't stop you and I can't make you make a better choice. But if you think you're ready for a mind blowing, life enhancing experience, open up your Bible and start to read it.