Stuck
I think I may have given up on the Bible in 90 days.I am a good week behind myself (and I didn't start till 7th Jan, which puts me behind some of you anyway) . When last I looked, I had just finished Joshua,- and I can't imagine I'll have made any progress without actually noticing, somehow! Given the heady excitement of running the parish on my own for a month, while Wonderful Vicar spends time with the Church of South India, I don't forsee being much more regular in my reading for quite a while. Could one of you give me a good reason not to abandon ship at this point??? I don't want something that is self-imposed to become an unreasonable burden, but fully realise that my always dubious relationship with the Bible will not be helped if I give up when I've actually got a blogging community to keep me at least vaguely on track.I will at least take The Message with me to Venice next week. Who knows, perhaps waiting for budget airline flights may turn out to be just the answer to reader's block. I'm definitely not experiencing this as a spiritual process to date, but rather an educational, "this-is-quite-interesting" sort of thing. I do know, though, that expecting the unexpected is a pretty good fundamental premise in encounters with God, so my mind is still open, I think/hope.
4 Comments:
Kathryn,
I would encourage you not to abandon ship because it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. Maybe you need to give yourself permission to read just half a day's worth instead of the full reading. Maybe you pray and ask God to give you the willingness to trudge on, knowing that soon, it will begin to gain more relevance. Maybe you just hang with us til we get to the New Testament and read along from there. (Although I will say that the stark contrast between the early scriptures and the New Testament is enough to keep me riveted.... It might be worthwhile to stay on it for that reason alone.)
Sometimes things that feel like burdens turn out to be the very things that lift our burdens.
Love+
Rachel
Kathryn whatever you do God loves you anwyay !
That said I would just pick up the Bible and start where you left off. We promised each other we'd extend grace to each other and to ourselves, and that 90 days can be 100 or whatever.
If you are at the end of Joshua, you're about to jump into judges which I'd never read before (other than Samson) and I foudn myself getting invovled in the story and also looking at the Postmodern society too - today we act as we see fit and yes pay the consequences.
The Ruth - which you know and love.
Then your into the life of David - its bloody reading and I can't cope with all the names and places but it doesn't matter. I'm getting a better idea how mixed up the socity was, how there were many battles for the kingdom, how they kept wandering off and God would send them a prophet to haul them back to Him again.
I forgot all about my reading yesterday - so am playing catch up too but I think it will be good FOR ME to have read the Bible cover to cover before Easter if possible or shortly afterwards.
and hey I only started on Jan 6th. Reading the message is NOT a cop out in case you are telling yourself that.
I've foudn the community good for feedback and I work well with lists to like the track planner too. Those yellow boxes jsut say to me - yeah I 've got some catch up but I'm on track because "it's all good*
phew - what a sermon.
love Lorna xx
Ummmmm ..... Kathryn & Kevin, you're both still ahead of me ..... Like I said in one of my more recent posts on my main site, the whole inertia thing .... and once I pause on something .... and, well, ummmm .....
Yeah, Steph...I think I suffer from the same sort of problem,in that once I've let something slide it's way harder to resume (specially given that I am getting a large chunk of Scripture daily via Morning and Evening Office) I dunno. Will plod on, or at least see where I am post Venice. Thanks for your encouragement, good peoples...if I do give up, it won't be for lack of congenial companions.
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