Be - Life With Open Arms

For what feels like the umpteenth year in a row, I am attempting to make my way through the Bible in a Year. The idea is a wonderful one, and I love how easy it is to follow. But somehow, every year, I find myself a few days behind, then weeks, then months. I must have now read Genesis and Matthew 5 or 6 times, but I have yet to make a dent in Judges.

When I reached for the book the other day in prayer and found the marker still in December, I sighed as I tried to work out how many ‘days’ I would have to get through each prayer time to catch up.

And then God spoke up. Don’t you ~~hate~~ love when He does that?

He asked me a simple question – “why are you doing this?” – but with it came a host of other questions and thoughts. Was I just trying to tick the ‘Christian who’s read the Bible’ box? Was I trying to prove to friends of other denominations that Catholics do know their Bible? Was I doing it to show off? …

And on the open page, I saw a simple verse from Luke:

And I realized why I was doing this, why it didn’t matter if I was behind, why I needed to extend grace to myself:

“Blessed are those who HEAR the word of God and obey it.”

Is it more important that I race through the Bible and finish on time, or is it more important that I take the time to really hear the word of God and put it into practice in my life? Certainly the latter!

So it doesn’t matter that I’m a couple of months behind. This is not a race. Better by far that I take longer and really soak in the word of God, and let Him speak to me through it. You never know what I could miss if I didn’t!

It’s not easy, listening. As an English Literature graduate, I am easily tempted to plough on through the story. And sometimes, perhaps that is what I need, perhaps the story will speak more to me than one particular verse. But I find that those times when I truly watch and listen have almost always been the times that God has spoken most clearly. Often, all it takes is learning how to ‘be’.