I Want to Read with a New Mind.

As I have said before, I am working through reading the whole Bible in a year. Now I never really viewed this as something that I wanted to do, which I know sounds just terrible. But like before I was really content just reading through Paul’s letters in the New Testament and Proverbs, without much attention being paid to any other part of the Bible. So then I started trying to branch out and find somewhere else to read, but I had no idea where to start! Plus when I did find somewhere new to start, I would get bored and just stop reading all together. Needless to say, that method wasn’t exactly working.

So then I was looking online, and I found the site youversion.com, and it totally helped me find something to read and stay on track with it. Just the fact that there is a daily reading for me to do and a deadline and accountability of sorts to keep reading has helped me stay in the word a whole lot more than I would have otherwise. I know all of this sounds like I’m just doing a commercial for the website and like it all isn’t really genuine, but it really is!

Now that I’m almost a month into this year-long plan (day 25 to be exact), and I have learned so much. I already wrote a bit on what I learned from Job, but that’s not the only place that I have been learning from. Reading back through Genesis has been interesting because I’m reading those stories that I grew up hearing in church, but in a very different way. Not to say that the way it was taught in church was incorrect, now I’m just hearing the unedited version. Nothing is watered down or made age-appropriate for the kids, it’s all the nitty gritty details.

Now this isn’t the first time that I have read these stories from the Bible, but reading them all in a row really seems to make a difference. Like rather than just reading a little here and a little there, I am reading them all together and seeing the connection between each one. It’s really interesting to read the whole story and see what really happened, and to be reminded of all those little details that I have managed to forget over time.

However, as I reread through these chapters, I am struck with the desire to read them and soak them in as if I’ve never read them before. It’s so easy to just skim over the stories I grew up hearing simply because I’ve heard them so many times. As I read through them, I wish that I could absorb their true meaning with a new outlook and forget the fact that I already know how the story is going to end. I think that is part of the reason I found Job so interesting, I really had no idea how it was going to end. Again, I had heard the general, watered-down story in Sunday school, but I had never taken the time to read the story for myself. As I read through Genesis, I pray that God will open my mind and help me to see things I’ve never seen before, and most of all learn brand new things about Him. It always blows my mind that the God I read about in the Old Testament is the same one who loves me and cares for me today. Ah man, our God is a great God.

Tomorrow will continue my reading through Genesis, and I am really praying that God will show me something new. I pray that I will learn something new about his power and love that I’ve never realized before, and I pray that I will find some application out of reading those great stories. Basically, I want to learn to read with new eyes and a new mind.