Spending time with my Bible...

I have never read the bible all the way through. In fact, I have really never sat down and read it just for the sake of reading it. Almost all of my bible reading has consisted of turning to chapters or verses during worship service or small groups and reading along with the message being given to me. I am now finally beginning to spend time in the Word of God simply for the sake of spending time with God and trying to better myself. I will be the first to admit that it is hard, but I am making a real effort.

Darryl mentioned one of his New Year Resolutions in his entry, and reading the bible through in a year is one of mine, so I thought I would mention it as well. I wanted to be able to give myself a plan...something that I can do everyday and in one year be able to say that I accomplished my goal. We sat down and figured out the best way for me. There are tons of "Read the Bible Through in a Year" plans, but I didn't want one that just started at the beginning and would run me straight through to the end. Because I have not read the whole bible (some books I don't even know if I had ever opened!), I wanted to make sure I got the Big Picture. So, we found a plan that allows me to read the bible through chronologically as it happened.

I am enjoying it. I will also tell you that I haven't actually read EVERY single day, but I am at least making an attempt to keep up and if I can make it all the way to the end of the bible by December 31, 2004, then I will feel awfully good. The one thing that I can say is that I find messages for me in what I consider to be the most unlikely places. I can be reading about something (like Job's trials) and think to myself, "Wow...that applies directly to ME". I am learning so many lessons about myself, how I should be living, and how I should be spending my time in Christian fellowship. God is truly amazing, and His Word is showing me more each day.

If you have never had a plan for reading the bible through, I am adding links to two PDF (Adobe Acrobat) files so that you can save them to your computer or print them out. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can click here and download it for free.

Click here to get a Standard reading plan.
Click here to get a Chronological reading plan.

If you can not get them to work, feel free to email me and I can send them to you as Word documents.