Sunday

Cover to cover

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua.... I can recite the books of the Bible, thanks to my mom who taught me to memorize them when I was a kid. I can say all the names of the books in order, but I've never read all the books in order until this year.

I'm in the book of 1 Samuel now and I'm wondering what took me so long to read the Bible from cover to cover. It's an entirely different experience than reading chapters and verses in chunks. And when I get to the end, I don't intend to put the book on the shelf, but plan to start over from the beginning again.

On this go around, at this stage of my Bible reading, the lesson popping out at me is how patient God is with us here on Earth who hear his instructions, fail to follow them, hear his instructions, fail to follow them, hear his instructions, fail to follow them.

Perhaps when my children hear instructions and don't quite follow them, I can remember that patience of God's and guide them back to where they need to be... and be willing to show them that I need guidance too.

Charlotte Mason wrote,

"By degrees, they [children] will see that the world is a stage whereon the goodness of God is continually striving with the willfulness of man; that some heroic men take sides with God; and that others, foolish and headstrong, oppose themselves to Him."


Photo: Pulled from the wreckage from 9/11: a cross.

4 comments:

  1. I'm reading through the Bible this year based on a plan that a friend created. I'll actually make it through the NT 3 times, while reading through the OT once. For James' Bible time we have read through 2 gospels this year and then he asked for a study of Solomon since Solomon was the wisest man ever and shouldn't he be wise like that. So we read from 1 Kings about Solomon's life and then picked passages from Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. James was more than a little disappointed that Solomon messed things up in the end.

    The writings of our Bible are definitely a great history of God's dealings with mankind. Lots of stories of spiritual conquerors to imitate and plenty of not so good people from which to learn lessons. I personally would have been tickled to death to be able to be in the presence of Jesus while he was on this planet and asked him tons of questions. Not many teachers today liked to be asked challenging questions. And I'd rather ask Jesus anyhow because he would know, wouldn't he?

    What is the church in your picture?

    Kay

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  2. Kay, the church in the photo is the Church of the Good Shepherd in upper Manhattan (Broadway and Isham).

    Hearing your cover-to-cover story encourages me to keep on working my way through the Bible, so thanks for telling me. I get a lot of energy from hearing what positive and creative things other people do.

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  3. I'm also getting into listening to books. I've never been able to do this before. I'd rather read the text myself, but a change has come over me. It may be because I've gotten used to using audio for James' school reading to save my voice. And I've decided that listening comprehension is also an important skill. I expect that of my son --- why shouldn't I? So anyhow, I say all that to say that I've enjoyed listening to the Bible at bible.is and I pass that along to you as my inspiring tip for the morning :)

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  4. kay, thanks for the suggestion - I will check it out for sure. But, I have to admit one of the joys of reading the Bible is that I use my mom's Bible.

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