Do you find the Bible overwhelmingly large and difficult? I do. This huge book with over a thousand pages in it that you are not supposed to just READ like a novel and then put it down and forget about it, but read it regularly, and study it, and pick it apart like an Emily Dickinson poem. All the while, applying it to your life, memorizing verses, and underlining things with a highlighter. Oh, and making notes in the back of it or wherever the little notes sections are provided. As for reading the Bible from beginning to end, well I'm going to tell you the truth--I have tried to do that a few times and have found it excruciating. I tried participating in a Bible in 90 Days challenge with my church and...I made it to Isaiah. And then fell behind. Off the wagon. I tried to catch up, but I got so far behind that I just. Gave. Up.
But it was better than the first couple of times I had ever tried to read the Bible all the way through starting at the beginning. At least this time I made it past I Kings. I did manage to listen to the entire New Testament on CD in the car over the course of a week. That was a great experience. But then when I finished, I said...what next?
One church I used to attend gave everybody in the congregation these little books called Life Journals. You read four chapters a day and out of those four chapters, you would pick one scripture to focus on and write about in your Life Journal. It was very simple. This went well for me at the beginning. But then, of course, I got behind. I fell so far behind that I was embarrassed to even start again. That list that was so diligently checked off at first kept staring at me, mocking me, judging me. I couldn't handle it. Even four chapters of the Bible a day was too much for me to read.
It's not that I don't like to read. I love to read. I read all the time and I have read very long novels. But they have to really engage me, and frankly, the Bible wasn't doing that for me. At least not the way I was reading it.
So last Christmas, I asked my parents to buy me a study Bible. Specifically, an HSCB study Bible. I had seen one at a bookstore, flipped through it, and was fascinated. This, I thought, is the answer to my difficulties. All these footnotes of explanation, all these maps, these pictures--it's going to make it interesting for me! And it did, but I still had a problem. I had no idea what to study. Where to begin. I had already made it to Jeremiah in the OT, and had already listened to the whole NT on CD, and I wanted something new, something different, something exciting.
So I picked Isaiah. I started near the end of the book, reading the prophecies of the coming Messiah, which have always fascinated me. I'm reading only one chapter a day and working my way through slowly and intentionally. Sometimes I mix it up and read a Psalm too. I really like the Psalms. After Isaiah, I will go where the Spirit leads me. I would love your suggestions. What are you studying right now? What is your method? How do you get engaged in studying God's Word?
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