#60biblereading

 It just sort of hit me in one afternoon. ‘You should totally do it.’ I said to myself. 

‘I totally could do it.... I think?’ I answered hesitantly. 

A little digging around on the internet found that many other people had read the Bible in 60 days. More do it in 90 and still more have a plan to do it in a year. Seriously, after the last 6 days, a year would be a cakewalk. 

Whatever that is. 

Numbers chapter 5 mentions an Offering of Inquiry. Admittedly the context is that of marital faithfulness in the sense that the husband can find out if his wife has been naughty around the camp. 

The terminology struck me though. When I have a question of God, as I often do, I normally ask it simply as if God Himself was standing next to me. An offering is different. It makes me think of humble petition or request. 

Maybe this challenge is that. Having no significant or specific goals, ambitions or aspirations for this year I have inadvertently (or perhaps vertently) decided to do what it was I found at hand. 

A challenge, a life goal incomplete and some time. 

I guess this is my Offering of Inquiry. An offering of heart, soul and mind mixed with that precious and fleeting resource: time. 

Speak Lord. I’m here. 

So. Much. Forgiveness.

Everywhere! Sacrifice this, God will forgive you. Sacrifice that, God will forgive you. Thank you for the sacrifice. It is pleasing to the Lord. 

I don’t understand why God chose to implement this system. I understand that the sacrifice provided atonement for wrong, for sin but of all the systems that could possibly have been implemented, why sacrifices? I don’t understand and yet I sort of do. 

The people of Israel were still on their way to maturity as a nation. The end of Exodus and Leviticus (so far) are all about boundaries with very tangible consequences. It would not have taken many days sinning before you were running out of things to sacrifice. You would literally sacrifice your way to poverty through sin. 

It is really important to note though, that despite the rules and regulations, it is very clear that all of it is for the people’s benefit. It is for their own profit and salvation that they follow God’s commands. 

He says it over an over. Your sins will be forgiven. 

I remember Someone else using those words in other books. 

Those ones are heaps more fun to read though...

Signs and wonders followed the people of Israel everywhere. Water in the sea, water from rocks, food from nowhere. 

Hundreds of thousands of people, piled high with the wealth and riches of Egypt, are wandering in the desert. It seems like a powderkeg waiting to explode and all it needs is a spark. 

They had plenty of sparks. 

There is so much in what I read today but I think the two themes that stood out to me were the fact that God drew out these people who were children in so many ways and He began to teach them a new way of doing life. It is so painful! Seriously! How many times did they complain about such inane thinks and invoke the ‘blessings’ they had back in Egypt. But Children they were and the whole story of Exodus shows the creation, not of group of people aimless and leaderless, but of a nation with structure, governance and direction. 

It really is beautiful. Moses is a gracious (mostly) parent who corrects the error of their ways and mediates their issues. Yes, they are childish, immature and annoying all the way through but it is only the beginning of a long journey. You don’t criticise a baby for not being able to speak properly or drawing on the wall with their crayons. 

Which leads straight into the second theme. I’m the kid who keeps painting the walls with my childish and immature behaviour. How gracious is God to continue investing and growing me? He does not and will not leave me here.

After all, healthy children grow, they don’t magically change. 

Sunday provided a little more time to read and think. I’ve found Genesis to be full of amazing little details and interactions that don’t normally get mentioned. 

There is some flipping weird stuff in there too. Not sure that there is a positive to be drawn out of some of this at all but I doubt that has stopped people from trying at some point in history. 

I read once that one of the arguments for the authenticity of the Bible is the fact that there are so many nasty bits left in. Any good editor of a made up historical text would have shaded its heroes a few tones lighter (and perhaps used correction tape over some whole chapters - that bit with Noah yesterday? or Judah and Tamar today? Seriously!?) and yet we find these failures recorded in all their gory detail for us to read about. 

I also read that the whole Old Testament points forward to the coming Christ. Of all the eddying and flowing of the Scripture today the part that leapt out to me was the quantity of God’s speech. He was active and proactive in directing the course of events recorded in these chapters and I know this seems really obvious as a point but that is what stood out. God speaks. Lots. He was clear in his direction and had high expectations of those listening. 

I wish I could hear that clearly.  I wish I could act that confidently when I did. 

Ok. Okay! So perhaps Revelation isn’t as close as it seemed yesterday when I started reading with the youthful enthusiasm of someone who has read all about a topic but hasn’t actually done the thing at all. 

Rising this morning full of plans to make up for my lack of devotion yesterday, i breakfasted, pottered, showered, pottered about some more, decluttered and tidied. 

It wasn’t long before I realised I was distracted. No reading, however interesting, ever gets done if you don’t actually read it. Rather pathetic were the lengths I was subconsciously prepared to endure. 

I emptied some overfull bins and watered some tired looking bird of paradise plants. I chatted to my little sister and did some washing while helpfully rehanging the washing that appeared to have been hung on the washing line by a hopeless drunk. 

Shortly after this episode I was trapped by the wiles of Tumblr (I’m new here so everything is still shiny!) and Youtube (I learnt about the gun markets of Peshwar, the Trawlermen of the North Sea and a little about how to speak so that people will listen by a guy called Julian Treasure (not kidding, that’s his name)). 

No major epiphanies today. Just the observation that what I seek to do and what I actually do are sometimes very different. I guess that makes me human. 

Day 2: Genesis 8-15. 

I’m going to do it. 

Yesterday I decided that I can’t wait any longer. If I do, the same old excuses will come up and I’ll be just as disappointed in myself for never getting there. 

I’m going to read the Bible, key text in the Christian faith and pillar of western thought. I’m going to read it from cover to cover in sixty days. That’s right, six zero. 

I’m going to be sixty days older anyway. By the end of it my Clash of Clans town centre won’t be as awesome and my Boom Beach account may get attacked multiple times but I’m going to be sixty days older. Think of it as a ‘60 Days to a Slightly Older and Hopefully Better Version of You’ program. 

Except it is free. Sweeeeeeeet. I love free stuff. 

Why upchuck my thoughts in the giant whirlpool of internets? 

I guess it is for accountability. I’ve read a fair bit and the more I do it becomes ever clearer how utterly ignorant I am. I see people have their arguments online and on television (did I seriously just type the whole thing? Why didn’t I just write TV?) and no one really seems to know what’s up with anything. 

I don’t claim to. Maybe I don’t want to. But I am going to start.  I might even be wrong with some thoughts. Happy to stand corrected. Throw in your two cents if you want. 

Why today? 

That’s easy to answer. Tomorrow was too far away. I sat down this afternoon  at 6:07 and read until the end of chapter 7. At that time it started raining. Chapter 7 is about Noah’s flood. Forty days and Forty nights.

Thought from today. 

Two people (Enoch and Noah) are described as having a ‘close relationship’ to God. Other people had God speak to them directly even though they weren’t ‘close’. What does it mean to be ‘close’ to God today? What would that look like?