By Nita Wilkinson

Faith Editor

Every once in a while, I run across a story that makes me stop what I'm doing. The story of John Phillips is one of those.

In January 1945, 22-year-old First Lieutenant John Phillips was serving with the 106th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge. Europe was bitterly cold. Snow reached their knees and sometimes their hips.

Phillips later recalled that his men spent 24 days on the attack without ever getting inside, sleeping in foxholes and suffering from the brutal winter as much as from enemy fire.

Somewhere along the way, Phillips received a government-issued pocket Bible, not an ordinary one, but one of the metal-covered editions known as a “Heart Shield Bible.”

Designed to fit in a soldier’s breast pocket directly over his heart, these Bibles often had brass, copper or steel covers and messages of protection or encouragement.

Inside was a message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, commending the reading of Scripture as a source of “wisdom, counsel and inspiration.” He called the Bible a “fountain of strength.” I love that, because Roosevelt was talking about something far more important than physical strength.

There came a day when John Phillips would need both. After taking Medell, Belgium, Phillips and a small group of men were positioning machine guns when they suddenly found themselves surrounded.

The Germans were in the trees and the bushes. They were behind them, and gunfire came from every direction. Phillips was shot five times. Three bullets struck his stomach. Another shattered his left bicep.

The fifth shot, well, it hit his Bible. Phillips later said that bullet, lodged in the little Bible in his breast pocket, probably saved his life.

There is something unbelievable about that image. A young soldier, lying in the snow, reaches toward his heart and finds his Bible.

Phillips was taken prisoner by the Germans, brought to a field hospital for surgery, then forced to walk about 15 miles to a prison camp near Koblenz.

Five days later, he was packed into a crowded boxcar bound for Hammelburg. He arrived still wearing his bullet-riddled uniform and joined roughly 1,500 American officers. Food was scarce and morale was low. Meals could total as little as 500 calories, consisting of weak coffee, grass soup and black bread made largely from sawdust.

We sometimes talk about faith as though God promises to keep the hard things from happening. That's not the promise Scripture actually makes. Sometimes the bullet still hits. Sometimes the diagnosis still comes. And sometimes we find ourselves sitting in our own version of a prison camp, wondering how in the world we got there.

Phillips carried his Bible in the pocket closest to his heart. On the day he was shot, he reached for his heart and found the Word of God there.

I can't help but wonder if that isn't what we are supposed to do long before the bullets start flying, not just carry the Bible, but carry the Word. There is a difference. A Bible can sit on a nightstand for years. Scripture hidden in our hearts is different.

That's what the psalmist meant when he wrote, “I have hidden your word in my heart.” It’s not because we expect trouble, but because trouble will eventually find us. When it does, we need something inside us that is stronger than the circumstances around us.

I think this story resonates with me because that little Bible did something remarkable, but it didn’t save Phillips from being shot, captured, or abused. It went into battle with him and gave him the “fountain of strength” that President Roosevelt talked about. A strength that can only come from God and an encouragement that came from the Word he carried by his heart.

That’s what we all need. Because this world is broken we can’t count on never being hurt, but we need to know we have a God that stays regardless of what we face. We don’t spend time in our Bibles because we think they will keep us safe from the world, we carry the Word in our hearts so we can know the God who carries us through the hard times.

You all know that I like to ask the uncomfortable questions. If you or I reached for our heart in the middle of a battle, what would we find there? Would it be fear, anger, worry, regreat? Or would it be the Word of god?

Eventually, every one of us will walk through something we didn't choose. The question isn't whether we'll have a battle it’s what we'll have carried into it.

John Phillips carried a Bible. And when the bullets came, it was sitting right over his heart. I think there's a beautiful lesson there, the safest place for God's Word isn't just in our pocket. It's in our heart. ■