Trusting the Bible

<p>Billy Graham, the renowned American evangelist, once described his struggle to accept the Bible as&nbsp; completely true. One night as he walked alone in the moonlight at a retreat center in the San Bernardino Mountains, he dropped to his knees and placed his Bible on a tree stump, able only to &ldquo;stutter&rdquo; a prayer: &ldquo;Oh God! There are many things in this book I do not understand.&rdquo;</p> <p>By confessing his confusion, Graham said the Holy Spirit finally &ldquo;freed me to say it. &lsquo;Father, I am going to accept this as thy Word&mdash;by faith!&rsquo;&rdquo; When he stood up, he still had questions. But &ldquo;I knew a spiritual battle in my soul had been fought and won.&rdquo;</p> <p>The young prophet Jeremiah fought spiritual battles too. Yet he consistently sought answers in Scripture. &ldquo;When your words came, I ate&nbsp;them; they were my joy and my heart&rsquo;s delight&rdquo; (Jeremiah 15:16). As he declared, &ldquo;the word of the<smallcaps> Lord</smallcaps> . . . is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones&rdquo; (Jeremiah 20:8&ndash;9). Nineteenth-century evangelist Charles Spurgeon wrote, &ldquo;[Jeremiah] lets us into a secret.&nbsp;His outer life, especially his faithful ministry, was due to his inward love of the word which he preached.&rdquo;</p> <p>We too can shape our life through the words of Scripture despite our struggles. We can keep studying, as always, by faith.</p>