The preaching bullet - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2024

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word!
Isaiah 66:5

The preaching bullet
In the 17th century, it was mandatory for every British soldier to carry a Bible in his baggage. Now a young delinquent had joined the force because he secretly hoped to get hold of war booty. Like his comrades, he had to carry a Bible. At the end of a hard day’s fighting, he hungrily reached into his pocket for provisions. As he did so, a book fell into his hands. He took it out and discovered a mysterious round hole in the cover. He opened the book – it was the Bible – and found that a bullet had entered the book block without penetrating it. The tip of the bullet was stuck in the book of Ecclesiastes. There he read, “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth; walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these God will bring you into judgment” (ch. 11:9).

Immediately he realised that God was speaking to him, for without the Bible he might have been killed! And now he imagined what it would have been like if he had died unprepared. He realised that he could not stand before God. He knew the good news of Jesus Christ but had not taken it seriously until now. And so this experience became a turning point for him: now he accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour and experienced a fundamental, lasting life change.

He liked to say, “To my Bible I owe the life of my body, which it preserved on the battlefield, and the life of my soul, which I found in Jesus Christ.”

God speaks to people in a thousand ways: in everyday life, through failures, answers to prayer, strokes of fate or, perhaps, through this story. He wants to convince us that He exists and speaks to us personally.

Today’s reading: 1 Samuel 29:1-11 · Colossians 1:24-29