It’s time for a new Bible. Not because at least a dozen new “versions” of the world’s oldest bestseller are introduced every year and are begging to be tried – but because mine is falling apart. I don’t want a new Bible. The one I’ve used for a decade now is comfortable, well-marked and familiar. I am in no way eager to “break in” a spotless, creaseless, pristine cousin of my beloved, beat up companion…but I’m going to have to, before long.

The cover has detached from the spine, and pages are coming unhinged, great sections at a time. The concordance has several folded pages stashed in the back, the way my grandmother used to keep folded up tissues in her purse. If I don’t turn the pages gently and coddle it carefully in my lap, it might not last another week.

But I don’t want to let it go.

I don’t want to let it go because a new Bible always feels like starting over, and one glance at this one reminds me I’ve come a very long way. I know the tear-stained pages where my heart has been broken, and the pages that have been like sweet balm to wounds the world can’t help but make. I know where to turn, within a page or two, to the verses that have shaped my life the way a blacksmith shapes steel – and even though I know them by heart, I love seeing them in print and reading them again…and again. I know where the promises are that feed my soul…and I need them no less now than I did when this Bible was my “new one.”

I’m reluctant to retire it because it’s not just any book, or even any Bible. It’s my history with Jesus for the last ten years…and it’s unspeakably sweet to me. The thought of fresh pages and temporary fumbling isn’t compelling – so I’ve put off the inevitable for another day.

It occurs to me that my reluctance to replace my old Bible is in some ways like my reluctance to leave whatever comfort God has given me and venture into the newness of the unknown. But He didn’t call me to a faith that stalls out in the first place it finds that feels like home. He called – and calls – me on.

There is infinitely more ahead with Him than there ever was behind. The past, as sweet and hard fought and precious as it was, is not where I’m meant to live. Every day with Him is a clean, white page waiting for old words to be applied in a new way. He will do a new thing, bring new wine, teach new lessons – if I will let go of the old.

So when no one’s looking, one day soon, I’ll kiss the cover of this dear old friend, and put it away. And I’ll crack the spine and breathe in the smell of brand new pages…and wait again for brand new wine.

“No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:22, NASB)

© Leigh McLeroy 2004