THAT OLD THREE-RING BINDER

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” (Matthew 22:37 NIV)

Do you remember when the upper elementary students and high school students carried those three-ring binder, often with blue, felt covers?  We had colorful dividers for each subject, and we started the semester with our minds set on keeping them neat and in order the whole year.  For some, that objective was fulfilled, but to be honest, the word “neat” never made it as a descriptive term for my notebook, not past the first week.  I surely did not have any obsessive-compulsive disorder back then, and I definitely had not adopted the philosophy of everything has a place and there is a place for everything.  That would come later in life.

Young people may have kept their notebooks in order, but I recall students writing on the outside of their notebooks, often with a fountain pen or a regular dark, ink pen.  The writings that stood out most as I went back through memory lane were those notebooks that had hearts drawn on them and in the middle of the hearts were messages such as “James Love Julie,” or just an arrangement of initials around a plus sign.  You remember them days.  If you don’t ask your parents or grandparents.  The arrangement of initials that I just mentioned was something like “J.S. + J.T.”  Those students taking algebra made their equation in the heart a little bit longer, “J.S. + J.T. = True Love.”  Ha! Those inscriptions on the notebook did not last a semester and some did not last a week.  When the flame of love between the person who owned the three-ring binder and the person that they “loved” so much was extinguished, for some reason or the other, the affectionate writings and hearts were blackened out, never to be seen again.  However, in a short time, a set of new initials were written on the three-ring binder along with a new heart encircling them.  At times there was other positive artwork like stars and the sun drawn next to the new romantic equation.  Guess what?  In some cases the new writing on the three-ring binder had to be crossed out again!  It was a sequence, writing and crossing out, and for a few people that cycle lasted throughout the school year.  Perhaps that is why they invented those three-ring binders with coverings that allowed you to slip in a new cover page as needed.  I’m just speculating.  As you recall or revisit those three-ring binders, cruising through the past  and rendering a critique, your throwback analysis will leave you stunned and saying things like, “What a change of devotion!”  “What a change of direction!”  “What a change of definite love!”  “Where did the love go?”  Now before you go digging in your keepsake boxes stored in the attic to prove my point or to examine whether you were guilty of such things with your three-ring binder or prior to interviewing your parents or grandparents, read on and see where I ‘m going with this meditation.

When you fell in love with Jesus, your inscribed on your heart some expression of your love for Him.  You wrote on the cover of your heart words of endearment for the Lord that you felt would never change, never be erased from reality.  In this case, what you first wrote in your inner self was an expression of un-moveable devotion, an unchanging direction, and an undying love.  Well, I “stopped by” to tell you this morning, there should be no need to black out or cross out what you wrote on your heart!  You should never alter what you wrote when you fell in love with Jesus!  Let it be as if you wrote your words with a permanent marker!  And then look at it once and awhile and reinforce your feeling by saying aloud, “I really do love the Lord!”  You should go ahead and say it right now, before your start your day!  Have a good one!  Be blessed!

“Love the Lord, all you godly ones!” (Psalm 31:23a NLT)

Still committed to the climb,

Mark L. King