Join me starting January 1, 2023 on a journey of growing closer to the Lord. Follow along as we go through the Bible in a year using the Chronological order of events.
My experience in the past with reading the Bible has been at times frustrating, confusing, challenging, heartbreaking, exhilarating, exciting, it has brought me to tears in utter sadness and overwhelming joy, and in more moments than I can count, left with my mouth agape in complete awe of who God is and how much he absolutely loves me. I am not worthy, but to Him I am.
Reading the Bible in some cases can seem like trying to dissect and decipher anything written by Shakespeare. I have to constantly remind myself that I am reading something from a time where not only the language spoken is a foreign one to me, (some things can not easily be translated into English) but also in a completely different era, culture and lifestyle. I also have to catch myself when I start to read something and take it as completely literal. I am a very literal kind of thinker and I read things exactly how they are written and take them for what it literally says. I have to remind myself that the Bible is like Shakespeare in the way of metaphors, analogies and similes; for example, not every reference to a woman is necessarily a literal woman, but may be symbolically or in comparison to something else that just happens to have relative meaning. This is why reading the Bible more than once, and often is absolutely necessary to grasp exactly what it means, and the more you read, the more it reveals to you.
The Bible is the story of God's love for us. It is a love story. It took me a while to understand this because some parts of the Bible can be really hard to digest, but I assure you those parts are necessary and completely relevant to God's love for us. All of us. We are the Parable of the Wandering Sheep in Matthew 18:10-14, and 2 Peter 3:8-9 -- "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
So join me this year as I embark on another year of reading through the Bible with the intention of a deeper dive and study instead of just checking off a box noting that I read that days passages. My true desire is to have a deeply connected relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, because my biggest fear is for Him to say to me that he never knew me. (Matthew 7:21-23)
My experience in the past with reading the Bible has been at times frustrating, confusing, challenging, heartbreaking, exhilarating, exciting, it has brought me to tears in utter sadness and overwhelming joy, and in more moments than I can count, left with my mouth agape in complete awe of who God is and how much he absolutely loves me. I am not worthy, but to Him I am.
Reading the Bible in some cases can seem like trying to dissect and decipher anything written by Shakespeare. I have to constantly remind myself that I am reading something from a time where not only the language spoken is a foreign one to me, (some things can not easily be translated into English) but also in a completely different era, culture and lifestyle. I also have to catch myself when I start to read something and take it as completely literal. I am a very literal kind of thinker and I read things exactly how they are written and take them for what it literally says. I have to remind myself that the Bible is like Shakespeare in the way of metaphors, analogies and similes; for example, not every reference to a woman is necessarily a literal woman, but may be symbolically or in comparison to something else that just happens to have relative meaning. This is why reading the Bible more than once, and often is absolutely necessary to grasp exactly what it means, and the more you read, the more it reveals to you.
The Bible is the story of God's love for us. It is a love story. It took me a while to understand this because some parts of the Bible can be really hard to digest, but I assure you those parts are necessary and completely relevant to God's love for us. All of us. We are the Parable of the Wandering Sheep in Matthew 18:10-14, and 2 Peter 3:8-9 -- "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
So join me this year as I embark on another year of reading through the Bible with the intention of a deeper dive and study instead of just checking off a box noting that I read that days passages. My true desire is to have a deeply connected relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, because my biggest fear is for Him to say to me that he never knew me. (Matthew 7:21-23)