Day 365 Bible Reading

Revelation 22: 13 (ESV)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

Today is the last day of my 2022 Bible in a year reading plan. When I read this line from Revelation 22, I found it a fitting way to bring this year of Bible Reading to a close. When I started my journey to deepen my relationship with Christ in 2021, I received a message that I needed to read the Bible daily so I could reflect on the word of God. My first thought was cool. It has been a goal of mine since college to know the Bible inside out and out, when my Theatre Arts professor screamed in my Becket class that most of great Western Literature references the Bible in some way, and we were missing out on the references if we didn’t know the Bible. In today’s world, this would the equivalent of watching Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies and not getting all the Kung Fu movie homages. In my senior level class of 12 students who were studying the great playwright Samuel Becket that semester, none of us had much knowledge of the Bible.

So after two years of reading the Bible in a Year, I can honestly say I still don’t know if I’ll ever get all the Bible references in a Samuel Becket play. But I’m going to keep trying to read the Bible every year in a year, because if the great writers of Western Literature loved the Bible enough to put Biblical references in their works of art then it’s worth it to me so I can deepen my understanding of my favorite Western Literature writers.

And I love that I start my day and end my day immersed in activities that deepen my faith in God. God is my Alpha and Omega, my first and last, and my beginning and my end.  

 Day 364 Bible Reading

Proverbs 31: 30 (ESV)

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

I love this line from Proverbs 31. I’ve met the most charming people who turned out to be total snakes and liars. These folks have so much charisma, and they hide their deceitfulness with their charm. Beauty is a complicated subject. True beauty is so fleeting and is in the eye of the beholder. It is rare for a woman not to be vain about her looks, but that beauty can be a trap. The women I know who are obsessed with their beauty pursue it more than they do their relationship with God. Most of these women are so insecure about their looks, even though they’ve been called beautiful their whole life. As a woman, I do want to be thought of as charming and of course beautiful. Who doesn’t? But for me the most important thing at this point in my life is that I want to be thought of as a devout Christian woman, who loves and obeys God.

Day 363 Bible Reading

Revelation 20: 14-15 (ESV)

“Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

My pastor said in a sermon recently how confident were we that our name was written in the Book of Life in Revelation. I thought about his question, and my immediate answer was Yes. I don’t know why I thought that, but that was the answer I received. I have a close relationship with God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. They have been with me since I was six years old, and although I know that sometimes I was not that close to God, he has always been part of my life. Do I often think I have disappointed God? Yes. Do I doubt God hears me and answers my prayers? All the time. But do I doubt that I have a relationship with God? Never. Wondering whether your name is written in the Book of Life is quite the thought to have on New Year’s Eve of what many are calling will be a tumultuous year of 2024. Will my faith be tested in 2024? Absolutely. Will I waver in obedience to God? Of that there is no doubt. The only thing I can be certain of is I have a relationship with God, and I work on relationship daily. And maybe that’s good enough for me in my mind to be written in the Book of Life. 

Day 362 Bible Reading

Nehemiah 9: 17 (ESV)

“But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.”

I love this passage from Nehemiah 9. It makes me think about all the times I have not listened to God or did wrong things or have not obeyed his commandments. God has always been loving and ready to forgive me. His patience with me seems infinite and he always tells me how much he loves and is proud of me whenever I do something right. Even when I have felt forsaken by God, I’ve come to learn that God has never forsaken men. He is there to always answer my prayers and talk to me about what I have done wrong. God speaks to me with such love in his voice and understanding of who I am, what my needs are, and seems to always know why I do the things I do. There is nothing that compares to the love of God in my life. It’s something I can’t explain because there are no human words for it, and God’s love has to be experienced first hand.