Okay, I’ll admit it.
I’ve probably read Genesis at least 10 times. No, it isn’t because it’s my favorite book or
because I just love reading it. Rather,
it is because I commit to those “Read through the Bible in a Year” plans pretty
often. Usually I taper off around
Numbers, only to try again next year.
So it’s been that I begin with the best intentions and then
fail to follow through. This year,
however, I took a different approach. I
haven’t committed to reading through the Bible in a designated amount of time;
I’ve just committed to reading the Bible.
My hope and my goal is to be in
the Word!
I’m not so worried with how much I read or when I check off
each book. I just want to be in God’s
Word and learning more about Him. I tend
to favor reading large chunks of text at time.
I comprehend more and feel like I get more out of the context instead of
just reading a couple verses here and there.
With that in mind, I embarked on 1 January on the She Reads Truth Genesis devotions. So yet,
again, I have read through Genesis. This
time, though, without guilt or rush or an insurmountable goal ahead of me. I just opened my Bible (or more often my Bible
app) and read. And I did complete the
entire book by the end of January.
As with most of Scripture, I had new things jump out at me
and renewed fondness for things I’d read a million times. Nothing stood out to me more, though, than
the newness and new beginnings of Genesis.
I think we often overlook the beauty of that. We see the formation and creation of the
world and of God’s people, Israel.
How fitting is it, then, to read Genesis at the beginning of
a new year? How awesome is it to see
your own beginnings written out by inspiration of the Creator himself? I loved seeing both how God created mankind
and also how He worked to set apart a designated people for Himself and I count
it a joy and a privilege to be one of those that He’s set apart.
I’m not sure where I’ll be reading next, in this interim
before Lent, I may continue on to Exodus or I may follow a different reading
plan, but I do know that I want to continue in His Word and continue to get to
know my Lord and spend that time with Him each day.
