Will you please read?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) was born in England, the oldest of 12 children in her family.  Elizabeth became known for her poetry at a very young age, writing already at age 8.  Her writing and especially her poetry would continue to bring her fame throughout her life.

Family life was not so great for Elizabeth. When Elizabeth’s mother died when she was 22, her father became rather domineering, not wanting her to marry.  However, at age 40, Elizabeth’s poetry attracted the attention of Robert Browning, also a well-known poet. Knowing that her father would never approve, Elizabeth and Robert secretly married, and moved to Italy. 

During her years in Italy, Elizabeth regularly wrote to her father. She wanted her father to know that she still loved him, even though he never wrote back. One day, Elizabeth received a package from her father.  It contained five years’ worth of letters that Elizabeth had written to her father. Her father had never opened a single one.  

You probably don’t receive too many hand written letters delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. But you and I do have a stack of letters, 66 books of them in fact, that God has sent to you and me. It’s called the Bible.   

I am guessing that it must be perplexing to the God who created us, how we can go through life and fail to read the letters that God has written to us in the pages of Scripture. The Bible remains one of the most published books in all of history.  For many of us, it is as close as a tap on our Bible app.

It cries out, “Please read!” Yet, it too often sits unopened. It is like the priceless painting that hangs ignored, in the home of the owner who is filing for bankruptcy. It is like the answer key to the crossword puzzle that we couldn’t figure out on our own.

There are those who have hung onto a letter from someone for years and decades because it was so meaningful. The Bible is like that. It is God’s love letter toward us. Throughout the pages of the Bible, we hear words like this: “This is love.  Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

Or, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Or again, “These things are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).

Which one of us doesn’t enjoy receiving an encouraging and caring letter from someone we know?   The Bible truly is that kind of letter.  It is a letter that makes an eternal difference.

All that remains is . . . for us to open . . . and read.

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