Once upon a time

When I was little I had this book of fairy tales that I would read all the time.  I loved that book.  It had a thick, luxurious cover, gilt-edged paper, and beautiful pictures on every page.  I would sit there for hours, admiring the beautiful women, gasping at the bravery of the knights and princesses, and just drinking in the general splendor of the entire experience.  I still have that book and, although nowadays it is more for nostalgia than anything else, I still from time to time will pull it off my bookshelf, dust off it's well-worn pages, and travel back to my childhood and the lands where everything starts with "Once upon a time," and ends with "And they lived happily ever after."

Well, then I started growing up, and was always hearing about how important it was to read the Bible every day.  And I tried, I really really did try.  But I never could be inspired by those words.  Instead of vibrant stories that came alive in my mind, the stories in the Bible always seemed like dry dusty tomes that had no life in them.  I mean, Leviticus and Numbers?  Who wants to read chapters and chapters of laws and lists of names??

I remember one day when I was about 14 years old.  I was over at a friend's house who was quite a few years older than me.  He was sitting on the couch reading his Bible and I asked him if he wanted to borrow a magazine that I had brought with me if he wanted to read.  He politely declined, explaining that he much preferred to read the Bible.  I couldn't fathom that.  I really couldn't.  Try as I might to read it regularly, it just seemed so lifeless to me.

I laugh at myself now as I pen those words, because my Bible is now my favorite book to read, like my friend from long ago.  The Bible is really just a big collection of stories - stories about real people, real situations, real problems, real miracles, and a real God.  It is the ultimate "Once upon a time."  Even those long lists of names and laws - they are about people; they are not just dead lists.

The Bible is one of the most exciting books that you will ever come across.  It has romance, and drama, and battle, and intrigue, and uncertainty, and miracles, and anything else that you can think of.  But we will only fully understand it if we let God open our minds and explain it to us.  Let Him explain it to you.  This is one "once upon a time" story that you don't want to miss.
 

Mark 4:10-13

¹⁰ When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. ¹¹ He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables ¹² so that, “‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,  and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’” ¹³ Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? ¹⁴ The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵ Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶ Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ¹⁸ Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹ but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰ Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”