“I Am the way and the truth and the
life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
-John 14:6
In 1911, thieves broke into the
prestigious Louvre art gallery in Paris and took the Mona Lisa. During the
two-year period when the haunting image of the woman was missing, there were
more people who come to the gallery to stare at the empty spot on the wall than
those who had gone to look at the masterpiece in the twelve previous years.
People were coming to the Louvre to see what wasn’t there.
Have you noticed that the most of us
do the same thing? When we are blessed with health, we never stop to think
about how our circulatory system works or our legs and arms function, or how
our eyes focus properly. But let illness strike and suddenly we understand how
much of these we have taken for granted.
Hellen Keller once wrote, “I have
often thought that it would be a blessing if human beings were stricken blind
and deaf for a few days at some time during their adult lives. Darkness would make
them more appreciative of sight; silence would teach them the joys of sound.”
She had a point.
In China and Russia, I have given
Bibles to individuals who had never owned one before, who had lived under
repressive governments where Bibles were not allowed. It is impossible to
describe the look of joy and gratitude in their eyes as we presented them with
one. How carefully they grasped the book with both hands as though dropping it
would be a tragedy of indescribable consequences.
Like the people who came to visit the
blank spot on the wall when the Mona Lisa disappeared, I suspect that we would
all protest if we lost the right and privilege to own and carry Bibles. Yet
scores of us never take advantage of the grand Book which guides us to heaven’s
shore.
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