… So long as you do not stop, says Confucius. I think he’s probably right,
At any rate, I have a confession to make: I have never read the Bible all the way through.
Yes, I’ve tried. I’ve tried many times, and over and over again my own perfectionism has gotten in the way.
I would always get caught up in “every single day, no exceptions, x amount of chapters” or some other rule I gave myself. Inevitably I would miss a day, which would turn into two, and suddenly I’d be “behind” by three months on whatever plan I was using and completely unmotivated.
Another problem was that I wanted to dive into everything that interested me, confused me, or challenged me. I love going down rabbit holes and learning all I can about specific things.
Unfortunately, this was not conducive to reading the entire Bible.
I’d be reading Genesis and end up on some obscure website reading about whether or not there was any animal death prior to the fall. Or I’d learn about various historical understandings of the firmament. Or about what “thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee” actually means. Or many other things, because the Bible is just so fascinating. Before I knew it, I’d be spending five minutes reading the Bible and an hour reading the internet.
Oops.
I decided that if I was going to actually read the entire thing, I’d have to just power through.
First, I found a suitable Bible reading plan (Seriously, if you’re Catholic and especially if you prefer the Douay-Rheims you know how annoying this is. I’ve yet to find a solution to all the crazy book names the DR uses…). It’s supposed to be a one-year plan, but I knew I wasn’t going to actually do it in a year and I decided to be ok with that. I usually take weekends off (Sunday tends to end up being a busy day with Mass, family time, or time with church friends!) and I only “double up” on weekdays once in a while.
I do. not. stop.
I use highlighters of different colors to mark up my Bible, and it’s made reading so much more enjoyable for me. I could probably dedicate an entire post to my internal conflict with whether or not to write in a Bible, but ultimately I’m glad I went with the “highlight everywhere and don’t worry” method.
One of the most important reasons that this plan is working for me is my liberal use of the orange highlighter.
Orange highlighter = confusing, fascinating, extremely challenging stuff. Stuff I need more info on. Sure, I also want more info at times for my pink highlight stuff (pink = apologetics), but mostly I know that when I go back through and read the Bible again, I will be free to look up all the orange bits and take my time.
Maybe I’ll do a slow second read. Maybe I’ll do a normal-paced second read and just add “digging deeper” to that. I’m not sure what life will look like, so I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
As it stands, I’m on “day” 140 and I think I began in February or March of this year? Not sure. Trying not to care, because the results are wonderful. Between this daily reading and working through Bible things with my son while homeschooling, I am actually getting to know the Scriptures so much better. Thanks be to God.
