Marking Up Your Bible

I have a secret to tell you.

I used to hate the idea of marking up my Bible.

I heard so many people say how good it is to get involved- to highlight verses, to write little notes, to keep track of the important lessons you came across.

This was all fine and dandy, I just hated the idea of having a Bible that to me looked like a mess. 

I remember one day at Girl's Camp a few years ago they gave all the girls (and councellors) highlighters to go through and help with our Bible Studies. 

My campers were all on board with the idea.

But there I stood, holding this highlighter wondering how in the world I was going to get out of this one.

I tried taking sticky notes and writing on them and instead of highlighting, I would just write the verse and highlight the sticky note.

That didn't work.  I ended up with sticky notes that had fallen out after a little while, and really I couldn't tell you where I had originally placed them.

Finally I caved.

I started slowly highlighting just those verses that I thought were very near and dear to my heart.

Then I started highlighting words and writing the meaning for them so I could fully understand what God was trying to get at.

Then I started making little notes on the side to remember various lessons that I had learned about certain passages.

Soon enough, my Bible was as marked up as it could be.

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Not my Bible, though I hope I would be so involved in studying my Bible it will soon look like this

But I am so glad it is. 

I love looking back on verses and seeing the little lessons God taught me.

I love being able to easily cross-reference the various parts of the Bible.

I love not caring about whether my Bible is marked up or not, but only caring about whether I am using my Bible as it was intended.