I looked for something on my bookshelf, the one where I keep most of my completed studies and notebooks. It doesn’t seem like too long ago that I started working through them. Yet when I glance over the spines, each one brings back flickers of memories from various moments and seasons of my life.

With some, I remember an “aha” tucked deep in my heart long after I closed the back cover. With others, the most powerful remainder of the study is a relationship rooted in time spent with someone else. I’ve learned a lot, struggled through a lot, left a lot behind, and grown more than I ever imagined possible.

Yet I face shelves of books that, to someone else, are just that–useless books or notebooks someone else has written in, nonsensical scribbles highlighting important lessons and moments along the way.

One day, someone will throw all these books away.

That’s okay with me. They’re more meaningful to me than anyone else.

However, I hope whomever cleans out the bookcases realizes all my completed bible studies are not merely completed tasks and obligations. They are journeys, experiences, and conversations. I don’t want them to pause over them in order to retrace my steps. I hope they pause over them to reflect on their own.

We may take different notes. We might take different approaches. But we are each on a journey. Let’s be willing to be disciplined, determined, pliable, humble, and transformed.