The holiday season is just around the corner, and with it comes the making of “The List”. You know the one I’m talking about; it’s the running tally of everything and everyone you have to shop for. “The List” is usually split into several categories, ranging from the practical to the predictable to the present-obsessed people in your family. The worst, though, is the miscellaneous category. These are the folks for whom it seems impossible to find a suitable gift, with the end result being that you procrastinate for weeks on end until you ultimately find yourself in Target on Christmas Eve wandering the Dollar Spot section in search of a festive mug, dish towel, or throw pillow to take to the family gathering at your Great Aunt Bessie’s house later that night (if you’re reading this and your name happens to be Great Aunt Bessie, it is entirely coincidental, and you have my sincerest apologies!).

However, there’s a dear grandma lady who makes her husband’s Christmas shopping incredibly simple. Every year, she asks him to buy her a new Bible. For decades, she’s been doing a Bible in One Year plan where she will study all the way from Genesis through Revelation every twelve months. She doesn’t simply read her Bibles, though – she highlights them. Her hope is that one day, when she’s gone to be with Jesus, she’ll have enough highlighted Bibles left behind to give one to each of her grandchildren as a sort of spiritual legacy to help them in their own discipleship journey. How cool is that?!

One thing that struck me about her annual tradition, though, is that she uses a multitude of colored highlighters in every Bible. When I asked her why, she told me that she prayerfully asks God to reveal different themes throughout her study. For example, the theme of “hope” is highlighted in green, while every reference she finds to “trust” is highlighted in blue. At the end of the year, her completed Bible is a beautiful rainbow of color. 

Her story got me thinking about how I tend to “highlight” my own Bible differently depending on the season I’m in. I might not use actual highlighters all the time, but the lens with which I read is colored by my current trials or triumphs on any given day. Verses that proclaim the goodness of God stand out more prominently when I’m on a “mountaintop” – aka, when I’ve just had an important need met, or when I’ve received some piece of wisdom for which I’d been praying. Conversely, verses about struggles and obstacles and adversity speak loudly to me when I’m in the midst of a ”valley” and feeling despair or disappointment.

Maybe you’ve noticed a similar pattern in your exploration of God’s Word. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing! After all, the Bible was written to be both His love letter to us and His instruction manual for how to do life; it only makes sense that we turn to its pages for answers. But if we’re not careful, we can easily fall into the trap of highlighting God Himself with just one “color”. We either label Him as a good and faithful Father or, on the opposite extreme, as a distant and angry judge. Likewise, we can read stories throughout Scripture that contain important lessons and implications for us, but we dismiss them because we don’t like what they’re telling us to do/not do, or because we think they’re not relevant to us today (like using a sharpie on the verses we don’t like?!). Yet we know the Bible’s not only relevant – it’s also timeless.

One of the beautiful truths of Scripture is that the more we actively engage with it, the more we clearly can hear God’s voice speaking to us and giving us exactly what we need for that day – our “daily bread”. Whatever your circumstance, my prayer is that you might be inspired anew to pick up your Bible and let the Word of God transform you in fresh and exciting ways today!