Seems like I was just writing a post welcoming the new year 2017 and already writing a new post for the new year of 2018! That surely flew by. I wrote about my Bible reading plan and the blessings with following a plan and realizing how I don’t read as much as I ought; as much as I would love to read.
It’s interesting now, thinking back to my desire at the beginning of last year, how God has shown to me my need to read more as well as gently lead me in doing so. Being better at Bible reading is something that I always need improvement in. I had no actual plans on changing, just wanting to read more, trying to get myself to remember to read more and once in a while praying about it. I was content with reading about 3 times a week or less and spent the rest of my time on reading theology and mothering books.
I felt like I had a good excuse to my inability to try harder with being a busy stay-at-home mom of three kids under the age of 4, Bible reading was not something I was pursuing with all my might. By the end of the summer, I discovered about an announcement about a bible reading challenge plan, to read the whole Bible in 9 months. This is a challenge between women from a couple of churches with an invitation to everyone else as well. It’s basically broken down into 6 chapters a day. I quickly developed a desire to “try it out”, and set aside my current reading plan. I told about it to my husband and a few friends. Soon my husband had told me he wanted to do it with me as well as friend of mine, who is a busy mom of 5 who does homeschooling with 3 of her kids.
As I started, I was able to keep up and when I was starting to get behind, my husband would keep me accountable as well as take our kids to bed by himself so that I can use that time to get my reading done for the day. My friend and I are also accountable to one another about keeping up and reading daily.
It has been over 4 months of the challenge and I’m so thankful to my God that he led me to this reading plan as well as through it for this long. By this time, I see that a habit has formed and I remember about reading everyday and I plan my day around reading my Bible.
I’ve also seen the amazing blessings of reading just my Bible because I have not had enough time to read anything else but I am very content! I love reaping the blessings of being changed through the book of the Bible alone. Im realizing that this reading plan has done the work of forming the daily habit of reading and also seeing the entire Bible as a whole story better. I’ve never read so much of the old testament at once while actually enjoying all of it! So praise be to God for doing such amazing work in my heart.
I’ll share the link for the plan at the end. I love how the readings are chosen very well alongside one another to get a better understanding of the scriptures and the parallels. And I also love that there are catch up days here and there as well as no readings planned for Sundays. That was very helpful for me to be able to catch up on reading that I miss here and there.
Another wonderful change through this reading plan is that I noticed myself doing some reading here and there on my phone. Even if I have 10 minutes here and there, I was able to read 2 of the daily 6 chapters and instead of filling my head with emptiness on social media, I read Gods word instead.
Its just been such an amazing blessing to me and I am so grateful for Gods amazing work in my heart. Glory to God alone.
Here’s the 9 month Bible reading challenge. It also comes with a weekly webinar for encouragement and suggestions to read on the catch up days if you’re all caught up.
(Comes with a non floral version for guys too. It was originally for women but the guys wanted to join so they made a non floral print out of the same plan).
Be blessed!
delightful mundane 