It’s a new year, and often people start the year with a goal to read the Bible through in a year. It’s a lofty goal, but one I’ve never been able to achieve. If that’s you too, I hope this post will encourage you.

It’s January 8, and I just finished reading the Bible all the way through.

The check-off sheet I keep there says I started reading it in May 2018.

Reading the Bible through in a year just never seems to work for me. But actually finishing the Bible does—I’ve read the Bible through a few times. The first time it took over two years. The second time it took a little less than two years, but still, I couldn’t get through it in a year.

The past few times it took 18 months—that just seems to be my best rhythm. I could chide myself for not finishing it in a year, but many years ago, the first time I successfully read through the Bible in two years, I did something radical. When the first year was up, rather than closing my Bible and starting again in Genesis on January 1, I decided to just keep going.

So, I wasn’t reading every day. So, I wasn’t sticking to my Bible-in-a-year plan. So, life happens and some days I just don’t get to my reading.

What I realized, however, was that I had my goals messed up. In the past (I’d say from about high school onward when I started to try to read the Bible through in a year and failed over and over again), I had been so focused on reading through the Bible IN A YEAR that the timeline had become my goal. Once I failed, I just quit reading.

But that first time I finished it—the time that took two years—I realized that the goal wasn’t the timeline, the goal was THE ACTUAL BIBLE. And I learned that when I didn’t finish it in a year, I hadn’t failed, I was just getting started.

What keeps us from finishing?

Listen, I get it. I understand why people don’t ever read the whole Bible through, whether in one year, or two, or ten. Some say it’s just too long (it is pretty long!). Some say it’s too hard to understand or too boring. I understand all of these excuses and thought the same things at different points in my life.

But here’s what I wonder—are these excuses are just a way of keeping us from the convicting truths that we just might not want to be confronted with? I mean, there are some really hard things in the Bible, and some of the stuff we read might challenge our current thinking or the way we’re living. I like my life the way it is, so don’t mess with it, thankyouverymuch.

If we acknowledge that the Bible truly is the Word of God that is given to us by the Creator of the Universe, we have to come to the conclusion that God makes the rules. He gets to do that because he is God and he is holy. And sometimes we choose to look at the harsh realities of following Jesus and we see only the rules, the law. The hard stuff. And we decide that the Bible is not worth reading.

But what I have found as I’ve read the Bible through many times now is that, sprinkled amidst the hard stuff and the requirements that God has set out for us, is also a very clear depiction of God’s character. Who God is. And what I have seen, when I’ve read the whole book through in its entirety, is a God who, first and foremost, loves his children. A God who is also righteous, and who demands righteousness from his people. A God who is steadfast and faithful, who never forgets his promises. A God who is for us! A God who is holy, trustworthy, perfect in love, and a God I want to follow.

What’s the alternative?

Lots of people believe that the Bible is God’s word. They believe it is true. While they may read it as more of a rule book than a story of God’s redeeming work on behalf of his people, they still acknowledge that there’s a purpose to the Bible.

Yet reading it all the way through may seem like just too much, for many of the reasons I listed above, so they read bits and pieces of it. A chapter here, a verse there. They meditate on just one verse for days on end. But the problem comes when they stay there—picking and choosing what they want to read without fully understanding that these small bits are just a part of the whole.

It’s the whole story that matters.

Think about it this way. What if I chose to skip around and read a page here and there of one of my favorite books of all time, Pride and Prejudice? Right away you’re probably laughing—that would be ridiculous! I wouldn’t get the full story.

I’d read the first line—“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”—and be so curious that I’d want to know more. But in the middle of the story, we find out that the people in the story are flawed.

What if I got upset with the characters I’m reading about and skip a few chapters and come to this—“Angry people are not always wise.” I might think that’s a pretty cool line, one I agree with, wisdom even, and I might underline it, but not fully understand it in its context. But that’s OK. I move on.

Finally, after flipping ahead a few pages, I come to the climax of the book where our heroine has a moment of self-realization: “Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.” How did she get here? How did she come to this conclusion? What events took place to bring her to this moment? And what’s going to happen next?

It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Nobody would read Pride and Prejudice like this! And we shouldn’t read the Bible like this either.

I’m not saying we necessarily have to read from Genesis straight through to Revelation, but that’s a good way to start. This year, my daughter and I chose a chronological reading plan that will take us through the Bible using a historical context; we’ll read the books of the Bible in the order in which the events happened. This can be helpful for understanding the historical context of the Bible.

How far I’ve come!

This week, as I closed the final chapter of Revelation, I took a moment to sit in what I had just read. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the light to the nations, the bright and morning star, is coming again. This alone makes my heart sing!

But to know all the story that has come before this moment—to have read of all of the rebellion, all of the slavery, all of the captivity, all of the poverty, all of the idolatry that God’s people (myself included among them) have experienced, and to know that God still wants to spend the rest of eternity with his people, despite all of their failings, causes me to rejoice. It’s truly mind-blowing.

But my mind wouldn’t be blown, my heart wouldn’t be stirred, if I had not read through all of the junk that God’s people had been through.

Reading God’s word, the entirety of it, makes me want to follow God more. It makes me want to grab hold of the life he promises—a life that is truly life. And the place where I learn to live the abundant life is not in my own head, my own thoughts or ideas, not even in my own heart, my feelings, as fickle as they can be.

Where I learn to live the abundant life is in the pages of God’s Word. It is here where I see people like me who wrestle with their sin. It is here where I begin to understand human nature, which is so contrary to God’s divine nature. It is here where I get glimpses of a God who loves his people so much that he made a way for us to live with him forever.

I won’t begin to tell you that reading God’s word will be easy the first or fourth or even the fortieth time through. There are mysteries there that we may never understand. But if we allow that tension to exist and not let it trip us up, if we just keep reading, allowing the Spirit of God to teach us what he wants to teach us, we will learn something.

Reading the Bible through once does not make me a Bible scholar. Reading it through five times does not make me an expert. I still have lots of questions (and I put a question mark in the margin when those questions come up), but I trust God to sort those out, either now, in my heart, or later, when all things will be revealed.

I’m no Bible scholar. I’m just a woman who decided to take God’s word seriously and give it a read—all of it. Even the yucky, messy, horrible parts. Even the boring bits (hello, Leviticus).

And what I have come away with is a deeper love for the Author.

*****

It’s never too late to get started. Just open your Bible and start to read! But just in case you need a little encouragement, here are a few resources that might help:

Reading plans:

ESV.org

Ligonier Ministries

The Navigators

Article:

My Favorite Bible In a Year Reading Plan by Melissa Kruger

Podcast:

The Bible Recap Podcast (You guys! This one is SO GOOD! It’s the very short, daily kick-in-the-pants you need to keep going.)

ESV Through the Bible in a Year (This one basically reads for you!)