Archives for April 19, 2010

Today I was reminded once again what a bad idea it is to read the book of Leviticus while eating lunch!! This is my sixth time through my Bible, so you’d think I would remember that.

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned my strategy for reading through my Bible and I thought someone might find it helpful. 🙂

First some background info: Six years ago, I was 38 weeks pregnant with Sassyfrass. I don’t do pregnancy well and I was miserable. Jason had suddenly been laid off from his job, so no more insurance. I was calm about all of this on the outside, but the pressure was building up on the inside and I gave myself a lovely case of TMJ.

It was Sunday and my gang headed out to church, leaving me in bed with a heating pad on my jaw. I had plenty of time to think about all that was wrong in my world and what I needed to do to fix it. I knew the #1 change I had to make was to start regularly reading my Bible. I had a nice little list of reasons why I hadn’t done it up to that point (maybe some will sound familiar):

• I wasn’t a morning person & had trouble getting up before my kiddos
• I was too tired at night to concentrate
• My memory is terrible, so I don’t retain a lot of what I read

I am not a disciplined person, so I needed some motivation. I decided that if I didn’t have time to read my Bible, then I didn’t have time to read anything else either. No books, no newspaper, no magazines, no internet, until I read 3 chapters (I just started in Genesis). Most of the time I read on Bible Gateway. I prefer the English Standard Version (ESV).

Now the important part: I made a promise to God that I would do this. It is easy to break a promise to myself, but I am not about to break a promise to God!

Every once in a while I have a day that is so crazy busy that I don’t get any reading done – maybe I’m taking care of sick kids, or it was just one of those days. I just start the next day where I left off, with a clean conscience because I didn’t break my promise. I’ve probably only missed a dozen two dozen days in the past six years.

The key to making this work for you is to recognize what it is during your day that you really enjoy and make time for:

• reading
• TV
• internet
• video games
• chatting on the phone
• crafts
• working in the yard
• exercising

Choose that one thing that you love and make a promise to not do it until your reading is done. I want to clarify that the point here is not to check reading your Bible off your daily To Do list. It is to get to know the One who made you and loves you… to discover His will for your life.

There are lots of different reading plans out there. Do you have a tried & true method that works for you? Share it in the comments – it just might work for someone else too!

Run on over to We Are That Family for tons of great tips!