Hotel Bibles

I confess, every time I have checked into a hotel, I opened the drawers of the night stand to see if there was a Holy Bible in it. Without fail, I have found a Bible; sometimes along with the Book of Mormon. I don’t know why, but knowing that there was a Bible in the hotel room gave me comfort — silly, I know. Perhaps it was making up for my lack of effort in sharing the gospel with my unbelieving friends. In my wrong thinking, I thought that there was some special power that came from the Bible tucked in the drawer. Just this week, it was reported that Marriott International announced that they will not carry Bibles or other religious books at its millennial-oriented hotel — the Moxy and Edition Hotels. Marriott explained, “It’s because the religious books don’t fit the personality of the brands.”  Statistics show that Marriot is not alone: ten years ago, 95 percent of hotels carried religious books, and today, it is estimated that less than 50 percent of hotels carry them. I’ll be honest, I was discouraged when I first heard this news. I thought that this was Satan’s evil scheme — to prevent the millennials from reading the Bible. However, in my complaint, God convicted me in a powerful way. He asked, “Why are you passing the buck to the hotels?” God was going after my own complacency. He showed me that Bibles left in hotel rooms do not replace my responsibility to share the gospel. Jesus says in Mark, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (16:15). This is a wakeup call for all believers. Instead of blaming our circumstances, let us respond to God today and seek opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus Christ to our friends, families, and neighbors. I am grateful for God’s gentle reminder today. I am grateful that He does not want us to be discouraged, but, rather, to be encouraged to be a vessel for God. Let us not be complacent but urgently do our part in expanding God’s Kingdom.