Breakthrough with God's Word
As I considered my intentions for 2022, I felt Holy Spirit nudging me to commit to reading the whole Bible in one year. Honestly, I wasn’t excited at all about this idea. My reasoning—the Bible is a huge, confusing book, I had failed to accomplish this challenge in the past, and it honestly felt like a Christian trope of a goal.
Yet the nudging persisted. So, I turned to Google for options.
I discovered a “Bible in a Year” reading plan supplemented by a podcast hosted by Father Mike Schmitz, a Catholic priest from Minnesota. I was intrigued by the concept of having someone read along with me and the podcast format was simple: 25-minute episodes featuring the daily Bible reading, a brief reflection from Father Mike, a guided prayer and occasional insights into the context of the scripture within the “Great Adventure Bible Timeline” from Catholic Bible Scholar Jeff Cavins.
As a protestant-raised believer, I admit I had my reservations about spending a year under the teaching of a Catholic priest.
Still, the nudging persisted. So, I subscribed and pushed play on January 1st.
As of this typing I have completed 228 Days of reading the Bible. It’s important to note that YES, I did fall behind a few times, but as Father Mike likes to continually encourage us, “it’s not about perfection, it’s about the intention.” Father Mike is like a good friend that greets me each morning with a cup of coffee and words of encouragement as I understand the whole story of the Bible and how it fits into my story today.
I initially thought that this journey through the Bible would lead to a breakthrough of my understanding of the text, which it has, but through this daily encounter of God’s Word I have come to discover something deeper.
Reading God’s Word is the way God breaks through to us.
Daily encounters with the Bible have made space in my heart for God to journey through me, and it can be true for anyone. When God’s Word journeys through us, He is building a foundation of faith based on His wisdom as we seek to understand and learn the nature of God and how that affects how we live today.
Day 1: I reflected on the fact that we were made for labor, leisure and love (Genesis 1&2). When we disobeyed in the Garden of Eden, we failed to choose love. True love is a daily death to self so that we can have a truer understanding of the meaning of love rooted in our identity in God.
Day 57: I witnessed Moses reminding the Israelites to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:5). I felt the deep pangs of God’s desire for intimacy with us. He desires excellence and humans continuously fall short of that expectation. I started to ask God to reveal the areas where I am prone to wander away from Him like the wandering Israelites in the desert.
Day 130: I invited God to restore, renew, and reveal the ways He was working in my life (Psalm 51:10-12). God had me in a place of waiting on Him, trusting in His provision, and keeping me tethered through His Word to His heart so that I could continue to look for His goodness.
Day 224: I understood through Jeremiah’s example that I belong to God (Jeremiah 1:5). I am His beloved child no matter what.
2022 is the year of God’s love breaking through to me in the most powerful way I could imagine. This consistent habit of reading God’s Word has laid a stronger foundation of faith and understanding that I was created from love to wholeheartedly love my Creator and others with excellence. The Bible has refocused the lens through which I view the world to recognize the beauty of the everyday in order to discover what it means to live a fully integrated life where the roots of my identity are grounded in the heart of God.
All that we experience in life, whether good or bad, are purposed to draw us closer to the heart of God. Once we realize the key is to seek God first in everything we do, His Kingdom will breakthrough with His steadfast love for us. He welcomes our questions, our doubts, our dreams, our laments, our fears. He is big enough to handle it all. What matters most, is that we seek Him first in this process.
That persistent nudging I felt was God aching to lead me deeper. He wants to go deeper with you too. It’s never too late to dive into a Bible reading plan because when we read God’s words on these delicate pages, God’s love is able to breakthrough to our heart, soul and mind so He can journey through us and use us to bring His Kingdom to Earth TODAY!
It’s time to take the leap--click here and get started!