Bookmarks

I spent 25 cents last weekend. I purchased five bookmarks for five cents each (that’s for my math challenged readers) from my eight year old neighbor. She just happens to be a student at Forest Lake Christian School. It was not part of any fundraising effort for the school, just a little entrepreneurial spirit at its finest. Contrary to my nature, I paid the money in advance of seeing the product. I figured for 25 cents, how could I go wrong? Besides, who can resist the solicitations of an eight year old girl?

I have those bookmarks in front of me right now. On the surface they are just cute little works of childish art. The “artist”  wrote phrases upon each one of the bookmarks that encouraged the user to “Be a Bookworm”, or to “Get your Nose in a Book”. But I must tell you that I was profoundly emoted by the message on one of the bookmarks as it encouraged me to “Read the Bible!” The exclamation point was hers. I hope the significance is not lost upon you.

One of the critical missions of Christian education is to prepare young people for Kingdom work. The intimate interaction with the word of God that our students receive in their classrooms each and every day is the critical ingredient to fulfilling that mission. The simple, natural , unforced way that this young girl identified the importance of reading the Word of God thrilled my soul and encouraged me in my own work. I receive that same thrill when my own children memorize the Word each week for their respective classes, and when they recite the Word in Chapel, memorize it for their speech meets, or share Bible stories and their applications with their mother and me when we tuck them in at night.

I dare say that a phrase of encouragement written upon a bookmark by a child without the daily blessing of Christian education may encourage me to “think green” or “imagine peace”, but without daily immersion in His word there is no possibility of  true peace and no eternal  purpose for stewardship.

~ David Wickstrom