New Year’s Resolutions & Focus Words

I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I was never good with the whole new year resolution thing but that the only one that I’ve ever kept was making a New Year’s Resolution to read the Bible, cover to cover, in 3 months – beginning on January 1st. This is the only resolution (to my recollection) that I’ve ever been able to keep. It will again be my resolution this year, not because I know that I can keep it (because I don’t know that I can keep it) but because I truly want to keep it. It’s important to me.

There’s really something incredible about reading the entire Bible in 90 days. Let me tell you something, the times that I’ve committed, as a resolution, to set aside some time to read the entire Bible in a year, I have not succeeded. That’s way too much time to let too many distractions get in the way; but 90 days I’ve managed to do. I’d love for you to join me again this year! I’m hoping to be more strategic each year, and this year I’m hoping to get my daughter on board. Realistically I’d like for her to just read the entire Bible within the year though, not three months.

That’s a lot of reading to do, so how have I done it? A little bit goes a long way . . . a little bit here and there adds up. I’d read some in the morning while drinking my morning coffee, sometimes I might have 5 minutes and some I might have 15-30 minutes. I’d take my Bible to the kitchen with me when I was waiting for the meal to simmer on the stove or stirring the stew every few minutes and read while I would wait. Or even take it with me in the car and go park in the car rider line a few minutes early when I went to get the kids from school, that would give me 10-20 minutes of reading. I’d read while the girls took their baths and read for a short time before bed. That little bit, here and there, it added up; a little bit goes a long way.

Some days are busier than others and I’ve had to set my phone alarm to remind me to read for 15 minutes. This isn’t some new thing though. A few years ago during a Bible study some of my friends and I were talking about setting our phones at some specific times during the day to pray, we’d all be praying together, and my friend, Keli, just kind of got me in the habit of setting my phone alarm and now it goes off in the middle of the day and I’ll stop and pray at that time. Now, I don’t need it to pray. I pray often. But it’s something I’ve been intentional about doing and sometimes those little things, little routine things, are really good tools to help us stay on track; they’re good accountability partners. So you can set an alarm or specific time of day to read if that helps you! Just keep doing it, no matter what! I used this specific book mark last year to help me stay on track, it had all of the verses broken up to help keep you going at a decent pace, but I begin to fall behind a lot and had to give myself a lot of grace days where I would just spend 2-3 or even 5 hours just reading the Bible to catch up. (That said, there were days I’d get a few days ahead, too.) But I was determined to finish the race I’d set out for myself; and I did, by the way. This year I sat down and made my very own book mark, an idea I was able to take from another Christian woman I just love and adore, but this time with the verses broken down to what is a more realistic reading guideline for me to follow. (Hers is fantastic by the way, I just needed something made specifically for me) It’s about being intentional friends!

Make a reading plan and follow it, then check each day as you go! That’s all there is to it!