The Bible 100 Days in a Row
Zechariah 10:1-11:17
Revelation 18:1-24
Psalm 146:1-10
Proverbs 30:33
Did you catch that?! 100 days!
What can I say? I'm proud of myself for reaching this milestone.
Besides my past couple sick days...I've read the Bible now for 100 days in a row. And it's also a cool thing for me that I've blogged 100 days in a row now!
I'd be lying if I said that blogging hasn't become a burden that I didn't expect...but it's a really good burden. I'm happy to carry this burden. I don't know what God intends to do with this project but it's already grown to be something I could have never imagined. Just the other day I was talking to someone from across the United States who felt encouraged to read the Bible every day in 2018! Who knew God could use what I'm doing to minister to someone I've never met so far away? I feel like I read stories like this all the time on the internet... normal people who couldn't believe this and that could happen... but I never pictured them being normal people like me sitting on the bed with a laptop in cat socks, braids, and a headache....I never pictured them being normal people like me...but don't I know God can use normal people like me?
Before I started this project I had wanted to be the type of person who read my Bible every day for SO long. I've always been in love with the Word...whenever I would remember to read I always thought to myself, "why am I not always reading this?!?" Before I started this project I think I would have thought that after 100 days of reading the Bible every day I would be entirely more affected.
But maybe it's a strange unexpected thing to admit but reading the Bible for 100 days it actually feels so normal that it's actually more encouraging. I feel different than I did 100 days ago because 100 days ago I don't think I knew I could do this: read the Bible every day. But I also feel the same because I still hunger and ache for God's Word. I'm not finished, I'm not bored, I'm not over it. What feels different is I'm all the more convinced that I will never get over it.
Before when I thought about reading the Bible every day it was all too overwhelming. And even now...it's rather intimidating. Looking at 2018 I'm scared, if I'm being honest. I know I want to do it but for all my new-found, 100-day-old confidence I'm afraid of myself...I'm afraid of whether I have it in me to keep it up. And then I have to think "mind over matter," "one day at a time." I have to get logical with myself...stop psyching myself out and realize that today I don't have to be thinking about what Lydia does December 2018, just read today. Pray today. Be with Jesus today.
And as helpful as my logic is...what helps the most is what I read today:
Psalm 147:11
"The Lord delights in those who fear Him,
Who put their hope in His unfailing love."
This is so loaded...
First of all, it's not about me. It's so not about me. Do I have it in me to keep this up? Am I being affected by daily reading? Does my voice matter? Blah blah blah: do you know WHO this is about Lydia? Fear the Lord. He is everything.
Second of all, He's huge, He's everything, He's God and we fear Him but we hope, we vigorously hope, because He loves. unfailingly. We fear Him but He loves us.
Third of all, this big, scary, fantastic, paramount, foundational, LOVING, God
delights
in
us.
Maybe I'm overwhelmed. Maybe I'm scared of myself. Maybe I'm not sure I have it in me...to read the Bible every day for a year.... but this thing I'm looking at is so much simpler than I'm making it. I'm making it about me and that is too heavy for me...
This is about being with Jesus the big amazing loving God that delights in me and while it helps to tell myself "one day at a time" it helps even more to tell myself:
This is about the Word of God.
And the Word of God is for me.
The Word of God is for us.