As the New Year approaches, many of us will make resolutions in an effort to eliminate bad habits and develop better ones instead.
As Christians, our resolutions may not only apply to our physical lives, but to our spiritual ones. And for me, my biggest resolution needs to be related to the amount of time I spend alone with God-talking to Him and reading His Word.
But I always seem to get hung up on how to begin. Where should I start reading? How much should I read a day? What should I be looking for/thinking about as I read?
So Starting Point peeps, I am looking to you for advice. Is there a devotional that you just love that really helped you get your quiet times going? Are there certain books or authors who have helped you learn how to carve out that space and time devoted only to Him? Maybe a reading strategy or guide shared with you by a pastor or teacher?
Let's blow up the comment section with suggestions so that we can all make good on our spiritual New Year's resolutions!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Katie, my heart started beating faster when I read your post! I love the mention of wanting to be in the scriptures, because that desire changed my life. I am certainly no expert on the subject, but I want to share some suggestions from my own experience:
1) If you haven't read the entire Bible through at least once, do it. Get an easy-to-read translation like the NLT and simply start reading. Even better, get a good commentary (I like Wycliffe but there are many others) and use it side-by-side with your Bible reading. Make notes in the margins of your Bible where you get a revelation or clarification. Then, when you read it again, you'll have your own commentary on hand.
2) Although I think devotional books can be immensely helpful and insightful (I love, love Oswald Chambers' MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST), don't depend strictly on a devotional book for your "Quiet Time." Let God speak to you through His Word, and depend on Him to reveal His truth to you personally. He speaks. His Word is alive.
3) Absolutely refuse to get caught up in how much you read or know. Take the scriptures one verse at a time. Determine to live that verse out before you go on to the next. It's never about the mind, and always about the heart.
4) Don't worry so much about the how or when. Just open your Bible every chance you can and ask God to give you a hunger for it. I promise you'll start turning off the TV and casting off your other reading materials to get more time alone in the Word. There's just no substitute for it.
Katie,
I too have had a hard time carving out time for God alone. I was very moved my Dr. Flemming's message this morning and challenged to make quiet time with God a priority. I love Cindy's suggestion on reading the Bible through front to back. I have a good commentary that I use when I read and I have mapped out my plan for reading it all this year.
I think the key is just to do sit down and do it. I am not a morning person, but am convinced that if I honor God by getting up and spending time with Him, I will be!
I too was going to suggest reading through the Bible. My mom encouraged us to start doing so when we were young. And with a few exceptions it has been a yearly undertaking of mine. I have tried several different reading plans and the one I use most frequently is wonderful because it takes you through two OT passages and 1 NT passage. Reading these passages together gives so much clarity in the Bible as a single entity and you begin to understand the consistency and the continuity of it all! This plan gives you somewhere to start and it can be read over a period of 3 years instead by just reading one passage at a time. I think I have it electronically and can get it to anyone that wishes it.
I do agree with Cindy about stopping as desired so you can stop to apply, but I find that having the goal to read through the Bible in a year (or three or whatever) is helpful because it holds me more accountable and gives me motivation to not miss a day.
Also, I encourage anyone to read even when you don't feel like it. God has a way of bringing His word back to you even if you feel like you have so much else on your mind when reading. I have learned to pray before starting to read, however, that the Holy Spirity helps me focus, understand, and apply what I read.
Great suggestions, Margaret and April! Please allow me to clarify one of my suggestions. When I read the Bible novel-style (with a commentary alongside), there are always one or two verses that grab my attention. In my own life, I have found those verses are normally the ones God is using to speak directly to me. Those are the verses I believe I am responsible to commit to live out right then. It's so easy to get caught up in the "story" and forget that the Spirit of God will use those Living Words to change my heart and life. I didn't intend to imply that I would begin with Genesis 1:1 and not go to the second verse until I had obeyed verse 1! haha! But there is never a time I sit down to read a passage of scripture with the intention of hearing from God that He does not point out something my heart needs to hear.
Margaret, Cindy and April-thank you for your feedback. Not only has it been valuable to me, but I hope others will benefit from it as well.
I too am choosing to read through the Bible in a year, reading a bit of Old Testament and New Testament each day. I got my plan from the Blue Letter Bible Website. I liked their printable version best, plus they didn't have dates assigned to the reading-just numbered 1-365. In the past, when I've gone by pre-dated things, I always felt I had to "make-up" any missed work before moving on, which quickly led to an abandonment of the entire project.
I had an aha moment last night as I was reading Genesis. When I was in college, majoring in English, I was never hesitant to mark up my texts with a red pen-underlining key words and phrases and making notations in the margins. To this day, Sean gives me a hard time about writing in my books. And in many ways, I have abandoned this practice since becoming a librarian. After all, I am teaching kids not to mark in their books.
But, what I realized about my college days and my reading habits then, was that writing in the text made it so much more personal to me. It was as if I was having a conversation with the author the entire time. And my brain was much more involved in the text-asking questions, making observations, and reveling in the symbolism and imagery.
So last night as I was reading, I went back to my reading "roots" so to speak and treated my Bible as a beloved text that I couldn't wait to interact with. And boy did it make a difference. I didn't get distracted once and I thought more about four short chapters of the Bible than ever before.
You know, we are told often to come to church expecting God to be there and do something great in our lives. I think we need to take that same approach to Bible reading. When I approached my reading last night with the same expectation and enthusiasm that I approached my well-worn Norton Anthology of British Literature, I couldn't help but be pleased with the results.
Great point Cindy about not rushing to finish but letting the word minister to you. I love that because I have caught myself rushing so many times.
This may be late but I wanted to share what pastor Trammel taught about 2 months ago and you may have heard it.
Reading through Psalms.I know people have read through Proverbs with 1 day but Psalms elevates your praise.
Whatever day it is say, today is the 5th - read Psalm 5, add 30, psalms 35, psalms 65, psalms 95, psalms 125. For each day of the month you do the same (5 chapters a day) and you can start any month. In a 30 day month, you would have completed Psalms and oh I never knew how deep Psalms was. I am redoing this again as I slacked off on Christmas eve but it raises your level of praise and reveals alot about God.
Rachel
I highly recommend reading the Bible through. I loved doing it with a chronological Bible..many paperbacks are available. Once an older and much wiser woman shared with me how she gets a different Bible each year to take notes in during her quiet times to document how the Lord spoke to her that year through His word, then once she was with the Lord, each of her children and grandchildren could have one of her personal Bibles! Loved that idea! I am not a journaler per say, but will write all over my "quiet time" Bible of what the Lord is saying to me or my prayer to Him as a result of that particular verse.
An easy and good place to begin is with reading one chapter of Proverbs a day...there are 31 so one for each day of the month. Pray those verses back to the Lord as you desire them to be in your life and the life of those you love.
Another tid-bit...as a young mom, my kiddos would always wake up before me so I would use their nap times as my time to be with the Lord even if it were just for a few uninterrupted minutes.
God will give you the desires of your heart and will so mold your heart as you get into His word, that He will change your "want tos" if they are not aligned with His best for you!
God bless!
Post a Comment