Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
-2 Timothy 3:12-17
It all began… Well I’m not sure. Maybe this has been what God has been speaking to me over the entire past year, but I’m too stubborn to always heed His words. You see, it is easy to obey when God’s voice is crystal clear. I know I will disappoint God when He clearly says something and I refuse to obey. It is when His voice is a whisper that it almost seems like a mere suggestion. I cannot believe I just said that, but I’m just being real.
When I left my job last March, I committed to reading through the entire Bible… as many times as possible. I have attempted this challenge before and each time I seem to get through the first five books ok, though it is a struggle, because I am still somewhat motivated at that time. Then, the excitement of my idea/ unofficial commitment wears off and I begin dragging my feet. It seems to be the greatest effort to get through the Word of God sometimes. Well, it took me a few months, but I did it! I read the entire Bible from cover to cover… ONCE. By that point, I was tired of reading. I compromised my commitment, reasoning that once was enough.
Various times since, I have pondered the idea of reading through the entire Bible again, but have not successfully committed to this daunting challenge. Rather, I hop and skip through the shorter books instead of tackling the whole truth. All the while the thought frequently pops into my mind, which is probably God putting the idea there anyway,
“What better way to prepare for The World Race than to store God’s Word in my heart?”
We had a drama team from inCharacter visit our church last Sunday. They ran the service and the Holy Spirit tugged at my heart. The last skit was about the persecution of Christians. I have never been persecuted, but if I was, would my faith fail? Sometimes I wonder. Again, my heart longed to store the Word of God in my heart and that day I made the decision to pursue this task of reading through the entire Word of God yet again. My goal is to read at least one entire book of the Bible every single day! Having gone through a Bible school, I quickly discovered that each book of the Bible can be read in about 5-6 hours or less. So, Monday I began with Genesis. It was a struggle, but I did it!
Tuesday, I read through Exodus. So far so good, but I was quickly regretting committing to so many hours reading my Bible daily. I know it is important, but I really struggle with reading the Word. Then, I went to my Run for God Bible study that night and they read a story about a runner who was training for a big race. I believe it was a marathon. The night before, the runner was looking back on all his training and told his coach he should have run harder, longer and more frequently to train for the big race. The coach just looked at him and smiled and told the runner, “The hay is already in the barn”, meaning the work had already been done and there was nothing else the runner could do to prepare for this race. This story was followed by the question:
“What are YOU doing to put hay in the barn?”
In other words:
What am I doing to prepare for tomorrow?
What am I doing to build myself up spiritually?
What am I doing to prepare for The World Race?
God has given me the time and ability to read, so I will read!
***I am officially 21.7% funded and only $134.90 short of meeting my first financial deadline! In addition, I already have most of my supplies; only a few more items are needed! God is good 🙂
