I have an addiction. I understand that if I admit and confess it, that that is half the battle to recovery. But this is one habit that I am not willing to give up!

Just to make sure that I am never without a fix, I have an online supplier and a local neighborhood supplier. I would say that my wife doesn’t know about this obsession, but I suspect she has an inkling. It’s not her women’s intuition or her spidey senses that are tingling, it’s the fact that she is the keeper of our bank account and it, the bank account, indicates where all the money is going-Amazon and Goodwill!

My addiction is…buying used translations of the Bible. I just purchased a 1959 version of the J.B Phillips translation. That’s my version of choice at the moment and I am hooked! About 4 or 5 Bibles ago I noticed something striking written on the first page of the Bible. an inscription. In fact, most of the pre-owned Bibles either have an inscription to a family member or friend, or the owners signature as a sign of personalization. At first, I was both delighted and saddened at the notion that this person who obviously had once owned the Bible or had possibly passed away. Someone had cleaned out a dusty old book shelf, or worse, had fallen out of love with and became disconnected from the Author of this amazing book. Several senarios danced in my head as I wondered and wept at the same time, I had an epiphany! Why don’t I pray for the persons whose names are written in these Bibles! If they are still alive, then I pray that the Holy Spirit would woo them back to our loving Father God! If they are already in heaven with the Father, then I will pray for their children and family members.

My hope and prayer is that they become connected or reconnected with God.  I pray that they would get addicted to His Love and Grace for them and that they would have an insatiable hunger for more of Him. That his Spirit would fill them and live in them and that they would be abundantly blessed by all that God’s has for them.

In this process I have gleaned some things. I not only take away from this a new vibrant translation of the Bible but also a deep realization that God will- at all costs-reach out (like a time machine) and call those to Himself who are lost, disconnected and needy in someway. He reaches out in both common and obscure ways. He reaches out through churches, podcasts, personal testimonies and through ole Bible Junkies like me who opens a Bible and finds the Words of Life for myself and everyone God puts in my path-even though it may only be an inscription or signature in an old discarded Bible.  God is so timeless and He really does go beyond all that we ask, think or imagine when He sets out to seek and save the Lost.