Reading through the Bible shouldn't have a deadline

“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Psalm 119:11

For the last year I have heard our pastor and other Godly leaders talk about reading through the Bible in a year. My husband and I diligently started working on that goal together at the beginning of the year in 2011 and made it up to about the middle of June with keeping up with the readings. I'll admit that we made it 3 months longer than I wanted to. It's not that I didn't want to read the Bible it was the simple fact that I was getting annoyed and feeling like reading it was more of a chore than a joyous way to get to know my God and Savior better.

I hate feeling like everything has to become a chore. Then when I started getting sever morning sickness I'll be honest any spare time I had went straight to sleep and on occasion praying hard for strength to get through the first months of pregnancy. The idea of reading the Bible and making sure I finished the readings every day went out the window. It wasn't that I didn't love God, or that I didn't want to know Him, the point was I was lucky to have 5 minutes of life, so I went back to what I could handle, which was a daily devotional that lasted no more than 5 minutes. I wasn't trying to put God on a back shelf or say He wasn't important I just honestly couldn't keep up with life through those months.

Through those 4 months of sever sickness with baby I obviously fell of the band wagon of getting through the Bible in a year. Then there was the guilty feeling of being a failure. How could I have not kept up with it? But then I realized, my faith was still growing; my love for God hadn't subsided or died it had actually grown. Through the little time I could manage to talk to God and read I hadn't completely lost sight of what was important. I had taken time to memorize a few extra new scriptures and found many old ones that had once been near and dear to my heart that otherwise I might not have picked up during reading the Bible through in a year.  

The problem for me with reading through the Bible in a year was not just the feeling of it being a chore to get through, but it also was like a race. I don't really think God intended us to race through the Bible just to say we have done it. Sometimes, I think God intends us to be able to read His word and study it out but it might take more than a year. I know lots of people who have read through their Bible's now and still can't tell me an good understanding of it or even tell me where half of the things they quote to me are.

 The psalmist talks about hiding God's word in your heart so you don't sin. This means you can’t just race through it to know it all and have a good knowledge of it, but you should actually take time to understand it so you know what God expects and wants of you.

I am the person that when I read the Bible for my own sake I love it when I come across something that stumps me, makes me ask questions or makes me have a new thought. However, when I have those thoughts or questions I want to be able to feel free to also stop reading and do a little more in-depth research to understand my questions or what I have read. When I was reading through the Bible and just trying to make it through in the year I never had time to go in depth with all the questions and thoughts and things that came up because I was trying to just get through the reading and then I would forget it and hardly ever get back to it to actually meditate on what God had in store for me to actually learn.

I encourage all people at some point to read through your Bible cover to cover. Start at the beginning, but don’t race your way through it. Reading through your Bible should never have a deadline, but you should have a goal to be open to letting God at any moment through anything you are reading bless your heart with new found thoughts and ideas. It may only take you a year to get through it, but it could also take you 10. Just make sure as you read through it that you are open to letting God speak to you. Don’t put a limit on when you should be finished. I find so much more joy in peace of reading the Bible with God than reading through it telling Him to hold on, or “I don’t have time for you to actually speak to me through it.”

So am I undermining what my pastor is preaching? By all means NO!! I don’t’ believe our pastor ultimately cares if you read it through in a year. I believe he is just trying to encourage all of us to make sure to be in God’s word and to spend our own personal quality time with God getting to know Him.

Reading through your Bible isn't a race, it's a destination of ending it with a better understanding of our miraculous and huge God!