Something to Treasure

For the past few Christmases (spell-check says it's a word), I have tried to get my family something thoughtful. Something they will use. Something that says, "Jessica knows me."

The typical go-to gifts have been:

- Food (mostly sweets)

- Socks (who knows what happens to them every year?)

- Underwear (why not?)

- Movies (typically only watched once, maybe twice)

- Christian books (usually end up added to my personal collection)

- Gift cards (last resort)

I probably will stick to this list again this year except for one thing.

Something I want to help inspire my family to do is to help push each other to read the Bible more and communicate what we are learning in order to "encourage one another and build one another up" (1 Thessalonians 5:11) and also stand with Job in saying "I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food" (Job 23:12).

I want us all to understand the importance of God's Word and live like we believe what it says. Of course this requires the Lord to work in our hearts to help change our attitudes and motivations but there are things we can do to help the process along.

So here's my idea and it involves two items:

1. A notebook

2. A "treasure" box

The notebook is for each member of our family to write in every day one thing, either a verse or a short sentence describing something they learned from what they read in the Bible, for the others to read and be encouraged by. 

The "treasure" box simply holds the notebook and hopefully we will regard it as a treasure as we see what each other is reading and learning from Scripture.

I will present this on Christmas morning but if any of my family reads this before then, hopefully they can look forward to it with great anticipation as I am!