THE BLANK SPOT

“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.