Exactly two years ago after finishing up the World Race Exposure trip, while sitting in the plane from Rwanda back to America, I decided that I was going to read the entire bible from front to back. It started with a challenge my team leader gave me, to make a list on the plane ride home of the little and practical things I wanted to do to start changing my life. And instantly I knew that reading my bible had to be on that list. And so I opened up to Genesis.
Well it’s been quite the journey since that day two years ago.
Reading the bible has always been a struggle for me. It was always so hard to get into, so hard to understand. It didn’t give me that warm feeling that I got from worship or that empowered feeling I got from listening to a good sermon. It was difficult and always felt so distant. Since I was a little girl in Sunday school I had heard over and over how important it was to read your bible but I never really understood why. I wanted to want to read my bible but I just never felt it.
Well if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that love is more than a feeling. It’s a choice. An action. And the fact was it didn’t matter if I didn’t feel like reading my bible, my not reading it was indeed affecting my relationship with God. If I didn’t know His word, how could I truly know Him?
For the past year I had made many half hearted attempts of achieving my goal. I didn’t really have a plan, except to try and read as much as I could in a day, which turned into nights, since I woke up too late and would have to rush to class. Which would always turn into me falling asleep one chapter in, as let’s be real, Chronicles isn’t the easiest book to read. And somewhere along the way it turned into just what it was…a goal… something to check off my list. It became another thing that made me feel guilty, another way that I was an awful Christian. Another way I was letting God down.
But the World Race was going to change all of that. The World Race was going to solve all my problems of being a mediocre Christian with a lukewarm faith. The World Race was going to make me a bible scholar, a super Christian, a woman of unshakeable faith.
Well it didn’t take long for me to realize the pedestal that I had placed the World Race on. And I quickly learned the World Race was not going to do any of that for me.
And so there I was, in the exact same place, just in a different country. Why was it still hard for me to read my bible? Why hadn’t the World Race solved all of my problems?
And so month three, midway into Job, I just stopped reading my bible. I didn’t want to force it anymore. I used some horrible excuse of wanting to allow the Holy Spirit to move and guide me in my times with Him but the truth was I was really just searching for that feeling. That self satisfying feeling you get, that feeling that motivates you to do something. That feeling that I wasn’t getting when I read my bible.
And it was one of the worst months spiritually for me. And then I had this awful/ amazing realization.
If I were to die that day and my moment came to stand before the Father, I would be standing before Him and not know His word. And not know Him.
And that completely broke me.
When that day comes, I don’t want to be face to face with my Father, my creator, and not know His word. I don’t want to stand before Him and not know who He is.
And as much as that thought broke my heart, God then showed me how much it broke His. That it wasn’t about accomplishing some goal or being a bible scholar, a super Christian, or even about reading the entire bible. It was about my heart and wanting to spend time with Him. Wanting to know Him and what He says.
And so I picked my bible up again and began to know my Father.
And it’s taken two years but I have finished reading my bible from front to back.
When I think about how I could have gone the whole Race without reading my bible I laugh. A missionary who doesn’t read the bible! And I realized how much I had placed on the World Race to save me. But the truth was the World Race couldn’t do any of that, only God could, but it had to start with me and my heart.
After month three, I realized I needed a plan and some discipline if I was serious, not about achieving my goal of reading the entire bible, but about making time with my Father a priority in my life. And so I decided that I would read three chapters and a Psalm each morning when I woke up.
No excuses. No putting it off for later. And no stopping even when I didn’t get that feeling I was looking for.
Because love is a daily choice. We can’t always get distracted by our emotions and feelings. Sometimes you just have to do it. And although I don’t always get that amazing feeling from reading my bible, though not every morning is filled with amazing revelations, I have grown to fall in love with His word and more importantly with Him.
