Through the Bible in a year

I’m always amazed (but not surprised) that God works in marvelous ways.   Every now and then (and it happens infinitely more often than I’m aware of), God lets us in on His doings — or lets us see His Hand.  I suppose were we to stop and really consider it, we’d see His Hand much more often than we do.  

Well, so last year (I cannot believe this is already 2009!), my husband was impressed that we should read through the Bible in a year and that we would do so with no particular schedule or daily ‘requirement’ or even length of reading time.  He just thought that we should read each morning during our family breakfast & Bible study.  We’ve had breakfast/Bible study daily for most all our marriage.

  Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.

We were almost giddy the first of December as we opened our Bibles to 1Peter and then on through the month we read as we customarily do for about 20-40 minutes each day.  Much to our delight, on December 30th we opened the Word to 17th chapter of Revelation.  We read, we talked, we prayed, we thanked the LORD for His merciful kindness to us.   Some days long, some days short, some days with guests, and some days with interruptions… the Lord had it all in hand.  We should never doubt in the valleys what He’s shown us on the mountaintops.  He took us by the hand from the beginning to the end of the book.

Now, this might not be such a big deal – for we were in no race, no contest and under no compulsion to even do this — except that Wes had been led of the LORD to just read through the Bible in –one-year– as a family.  Believe me, we’ve attempted to do similar things in our quiet times – reading a prescribed number of chapters a day — two or three in the old and two or three in the new and so on.  We’ve used the check-box sheets and we’ve used other methods of scheduled reading.  I’m not sure how far we would get into the first month, but I recall it being in the first several days that I would get derailed.  So I would just go back to reading — with no real schedule so that I wouldn’t be all flustered and feel guilty — but more, so that I would just do it.

And so, that’s why the daily reading and ending up at the end of the book at the end of the month was such a sweet gift from the LORD…  and affirmed to me once again:

A man’s heart deviseth his way:
but the LORD directeth his steps.
–proverbs 16.19

God is good all the time and His ways are past finding out.