My Bible in My Language

          I like to read.  It all started in first grade with Dick, Jane and Spot.  I guess I caught on fairly well as I had a tendency to read ahead in my book until the teacher decided to tape it shut at the new material.  I could only go through one chapter and so I had to wait until we came to the next class before I could read ahead.  It was opening new things for me.  I can't say that I an what people would call an "avid" reader, but I still like to get engrossed in a good story.  Recently, we had the Wycliffe Associates over for a meeting for the upcoming banquet.  I have enjoyed the banquets over the past 30 years or so as I hear the stories of people who are learning to read their own language and finally to have a copy of the Bible in their hands and to be able to read it for themselves.  Revelation 1:3 says, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand."  
        There are other verses that exhort us to read God's Word.  What is almost amazing about this is that we who have the ability to read, often just simply do not do it.  Perhaps we have taken the gift of reading for granted and laid it aside to have our minds tickled by other methods.  Whatever the problem might be, not only do we have to get back to reading the Scriptures, but to help in the area of translating the Bible for others in order that they might be able to read it for the first time.  There are those people groups that hear about the Bible and who are requesting, in fact begging, for a copy of their own, in their on language, in order that they might read it for themselves.  The time involved in producing a translation has been greatly reduced and the works can be printed on the spot as it is completed.  The years of typing on a portable Royal Typewriter have given way to the computer tablet being used in a jungle through a satellite hook up and a portable printer to do the work that would have taken years to accomplish just a few years ago.  What is so exciting is that you and me can be used to make this all possible for someone who lives far away.  Secondly, perhaps it will inspire us to take another look at that beautifully leather bound book that you carry to church on Sundays and Wednesdays.  Maybe you will rediscover the message of hope, love, peace, joy and of heaven itself in its pages.  Don't neglect the gift that has been given to you and then go and make it possible for someone else to have that same gift in their own language.   Praise God today for His Word and that you have you own copy.