The Gideon Bible
by Pastor Gary Drabek
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My
voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and
dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation
3:20)
When I was in the
fourth grade, my school was visited by two gentlemen
who belonged to an organization called the "Gideons."
The high point for me of the visit was when they
handed-out a New Testament for each one of us.
I remember that during the time they told us about
the Gideon organization they explained how the
Gideons place Bibles into hotel rooms and hospitals.
One of them said,
"No matter where you are in the world, if you are in
a hotel or hospital, you will find a Gideon Bible in
the room." Being a normal, healthy nine-year
old, I took that comment as a personal challenge.
From that day forward, any time I was in a hotel,
motel, or was visiting someone in the hospital, I
played a game I made-up myself. It was called,
"Find the Gideon Bible." And do you know what?
Every time I looked, I found a Gideon Bible.
The game continued even into young adulthood, and I
became confident that what that gentleman had said
was true; that there would always be a Bible in that
place.
I had no idea that
God was preparing that nine-year old boy for an
event, many years down the road, that would change
my life forever.
Years later, in
April of 1975, I was on a business trip to San
Francisco. The conference I was attending
consisted of three days of management training by
day and partying by night. I shared a hotel
room with another upwardly mobile young man, who
seemed somehow different from most of us. He
didn't drink, smoke, swear or party like the rest of
us. I figured he must have been a Mormon.
On the final night
of the conference, I, being the religious person
that I thought I was, decided to talk about religion
with him. I soon found out that this was the
moment he had been waiting for, all during the past
three days.
He began to tell
me about his personal relationship with Jesus
Christ. But pretty soon, he got a very
distressed look on his face. He looked at me
and said, "Oh no, I've already packed my Bible and I
took the suitcase down to the lobby."
"Well, no
problem!" I said. I walked to the nightstand,
opened the bottom drawer and pulled out the Gideon
Bible. You see, God had started preparing me
for that night when I was nine years old. All
the years of playing "Find the Bible," were a part
of God's preparation, His grace, working in my life
from the time I was nine because He knew that young
man was going to prematurely pack-away his Bible.
Satan could have
been victorious and kept another soul, but that
night, in a hotel room in San Francisco, I received
Christ as my Lord and Savior because that young man
shared God's plan of salvation with me from a Gideon
Bible.
Dear Readers: You may contact
Pastor Gary through
Ron@FridayStudy.org.
