Ruth Jaehne is a creative thinker, graphic designer, and artist. With a love for adventure and travel, she spent her university years in Ireland and is now based in the U.K. with her husband Ashton. She remains set on using her talents to spread the gospel and display the “God-colours” in the world (Matt 5:14-16 MSG).
THE BEST ADVICE THAT I’VE EVER BEEN GIVEN
The best advice that I’ve been given was from my mom when I had just started high school. I was 13 years old and had just joined a local youth group where I began developing a deep love for scripture and a desire to read my Bible.
I was trying to get into a more habitual routine with my Bible reading while combating both busyness and laziness. But as I was not an avid book reader, I was struggling to remain disciplined. This is where my mom stepped in and suggested that I keep my Bible open at all times next to my bed or on the desk where I study. It seemed like such a simple and menial step, but boy did it change my life! I was no longer able to make up excuses as to why I couldn’t read my Bible DAILY.
It is said that starting something is always the hardest, and somehow in my humanness, I had created such a mental hurdle toward simply opening my Bible that it took away from the life-giving delight of reading it. Having it open at all times took that hurdle away and replaced it with joy and curiosity. I soon became so accustomed to reading my bible whenever I was near its open pages that I began reading it before school, after school, and before bed – not out of habit but out of pure desire!
Starting this simple step of keeping my Bible open at all times influenced how I fell in love with The Word as a young teenager and impacted my life for years to come. After all, scripture should be our daily bread, not just cake for special occasions.
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Ruth’s wonderful advice as received from her mother, took me back to two extra-ordinary testimonies I read. Jerry B. Jenkins, the well-known Christian author shares about one of many interviews he had with Dr. Billy Graham while helping him putting his memoirs together in Just As I Am.
“How do you maintain your own spiritual disciplines?” he wanted to know.
“It’s no secret,” he said. The Bible doesn’t make it hard. We are told to do two things: to pray without ceasing and search the Scriptures daily.”
I had always hoped the “pray without ceasing” line from Paul was figurative, because I certainly hadn’t been able to pull it off, Mr. Jenkings mused.
Then he asked, “You pray without ceasing?”
Dr. Graham looked me in the eye and said, “I do. And I have every waking moment since I received Christ as a teenager. I’m praying right now that everything I say is honouring to God and not to me.”
“How about searching the Scriptures?” Mr. Jenkins continued. “What form does that take?”
He said, “Wherever I am in the world, I put my Bible where I can see it during the course of the day. If I’m in a hotel room, I open it and put it on the bed. If I’m in my office, I open it and put it on the edge of my desk. If I’m at home I put it someplace where I’m going to see it frequently.”
I looked over his shoulder. There it was, his open Bible on the desk.
Mr Graham continued, “Anytime I notice that open Bible, I stop and read a verse or two, a chapter or two, or I read for an hour or two. This is not for sermon preparation. It’s just for my own edification. It’s my spiritual food.”
Interestingly, it was a habit he shared with his wife of many years, Ruth Graham. In a beautiful booklet[1]prepared by her daughter and namesake, she reminisces about her mother…
“But perhaps the most distinctive and constant feature of Mother’s desk was her open Bible. She kept it front and centre on the desk and would read from it throughout the day, taking a few moments here and there to glean nuggets of truth. Other books and notebooks might stay open alongside Mother’s Bible, showing the desk as a place in constant use. And her desk was in constant use. For in Mother’s case, Bible reading, studying, writing and learning were not so much activities as states of being.”
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Dear friends, what a truth and challenge Ruth Jaehne has delivered to each one of us this week. May God indeed help us to re-commit ourselves to keep our Christian disciplines in the midst of a culture and generation that worships hurry and flurry!
[1] A Legacy of Love, Ruth Graham, pg. 24
