Tonight, around 6:20 or so, I finished reading my Favorite Book one more time.
Somewhere, as a young adult, I received the challenge to try to read through the Bible every year as a matter of course. Just do it.
And so, years and years ago, I began to make that a given. No one thing has been as life changing as that decision. And most of the time, I’ve done it. There have been a few years along the way when it didn’t get done, but I try not to get tangled up by what I didn’t get done. It seemed important to just try again. I’ve used various translations, various programs, but always, always, I keep an account of my progress. Usually I go into my Women’s Devotional Bible and copy off that schedule and use the empty space at the bottom of the fourth page to put my Bible promise for the year that I’ve been given in our annual Promise exchange at church. I put my reading schedule into the pages and use it for a bookmark. And then I mark the passages as I read them, and often muse over the verse that becomes my motto for the year.
For the daily Bible readings, I use Max Lucado’s Grace for the Moment Daily Bible in the New Century Version. ( NCV just happens to be my favorite version of all.) It has a brief devotional every day from Max Lucado’s writings, and then has readings from the Old Testament, a brief reading from Psalms, and even briefer reading from Proverbs, and then a reading from the New Testament. It has been the best schedule for me, and I use a cheap paperback edition and I write in it and put dates in it with significant events that I’ve been inspired to think about by the passages for the day. There is a very old falling apart copy that sits by my chair and a newer one by my bed upstairs and this Word from a Holy God who has chosen to redeem this gal with feet of clay and made me a daughter of the KING, continues to be LIFE and LIGHT and HOPE to me.
2013 stretches ahead with so many exciting possibilities and dismal predictions. This Book, God’s Word, should be our Center of reference.
Does anyone want to join me?
Delaware Grammy 
I will be reading through the Bible this year too!!
Thank you for this recommendation, Mary Ann! It’s been quite a few years since I’ve read through the Bible in a year. I just bought the Nook version of this. However, I am a MARKER, so I think I’ll end up getting the real thing before long.
I have a “read the Bible in a year” Bible which makes it easy…..but every year, I fail. I hope to try again this year, yes. I like your advice “just do it”
I, too, will be trying to read through again this year. I got further last year than I have since I was a teen, and while I didn’t read it all the way through, I did read a portion almost every day. And you are right, nothing is so life transforming as being in the Word!Thank you for even more encouragement!
I just bought the Kindle version of the Max Lucado bible you mentioned and I’m going to do it…I almost said try to do it but I really don’t even want to say try, I want to do it. Thanks for the encouragement! ~Erica