My Most Valuable Possession

By Theda Pienaar

As is my custom, I opened my Bible to read on a flight from Namibia to South Africa. Immediately, a young man beside me spoke up.

“Is that a Bible?” he said. He apparently was from Eastern Europe.

Image © Pacific Press

“Yes, it’s a Bible,” I said.

“Do you believe in the Bible?” he said.

“Yes, with all my heart.”

He said his grandparents used to read the Bible to him but he didn’t believe the stories, especially Creation. I shared my life-changing experience as a person who had returned to God after 15 years on my own and was led by Him to a place of safety in the world. He was interested in my story.

“Can I hold your Bible, please?” he asked.

It was thrilling to see my Bible in his hands. It seemed go make a big impression on him. After he handed it back, I read out loud from Isaiah 43. He listened with interest to God’s promises of protection.

Before the plane landed, I asked, “Would you accept a gift?” In my bag, I had a copy of Steps to Christ. He didn’t want to take the book, but I assured him that I had another copy. “If you have any questions, please text me,” I said, writing my phone number inside the cover.

To my surprise, within a day of my arrival home in Ireland, he texted, “I’m home safely.” I prayed, “I don’t think this is a coincidence.” He wrote that he had met a woman in Namibia who prayed daily. “Seeing that, I started thinking about my grandparents reading the Bible, and then I met you,” he said.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said. “Let God to speak to your heart.”

We texted every so often, and I sent Bible verses. One day, he sent me a picture of a church. “I live next to this church,” he said.

I replied that I wanted to mail him a history of the Christian church and, when I received his address, I sent him The Great Controversy.

Sometime later, someone sent me a video about the plan of salvation, and I passed it on to him. He responded, “This is so amazing.”

I prayed, “Lord, I need to know what might work in his life.” A strong thought came to mind: “He held your Bible. Give him your Bible.”

I have decided to mail my Bible to him. I have written a letter, saying, “This is my most precious possession. God gave His only Son, the most precious thing that He had, for our salvation. I hope you will read this, my most precious possession.”

This mission story illustrates Spiritual Growth Objective No. 5 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s “I Will Go” strategic plan, “To disciple individuals and families into spirit-filled lives.” Read more: IWillGo2020[dot]org.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought:

God chose Jacob, not because he deserved it, but because of His grace. And yet, Jacob worked hard to try to deserve grace, which itself is a contradiction. If he deserved it, then it wouldn’t be grace; it would be works (see Romans 4:1-5), which is contrary to the gospel.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

Only later did Jacob start to understand the significance of God’s grace and what it meant to trust God, to live by faith, and to be completely dependent on the Lord. Jacob’s experience contains an important lesson for the ambitious person: do not strive to promote yourself at the expense of others.

“Jacob thought to gain a right to the birthright through deception, but he found himself disappointed. He thought he had lost everything, his connection with God, his home, and all, and there he was a disappointed fugitive. But what did God do? He looked upon him in his hopeless condition, He saw his disappointment, and He saw there was material there that would render back glory to God. No sooner does He see his condition than He presents the mystic ladder, which represents Jesus Christ. Here is man, who had lost all connection with God, and the God of heaven looks upon him and consents that Christ shall bridge the gulf which sin has made. We might have looked and said, I long for heaven but how can I reach it? I see no way. That is what Jacob thought, and so God shows him the vision of the ladder, and that ladder connects earth with heaven, with Jesus Christ. A man can climb it, for the base rests upon the earth and the top-most round reaches into heaven.” — Ellen G. White Comments, The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 1, p. 1095.

Discussion Questions:

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