Take Up and Read

If you are like most folks, this is the time of year you take inventory of your life. We tend to think about the areas in which we are falling short of our ideal and begin to contemplate the ways we can improve. I am told that more exercise equipment is sold immediately after the New Year than the rest of the year combined. I have an elliptical in my bedroom collecting dust and laundry that was purchased as part of a New Year's resolution a few years ago.

While losing weight and committing to physical exercise is valuable, it falls far short of the commitment to spiritual exercise we need to make. As the exercise equipment flooding garage sales and eBay can attest, resolutions are easy to break. Commitments are not. 

This year, I encourage you to commit to a Bible reading plan.  Several good plans are available.  Justin Taylor has an excellent summation of several good plans, including links to plans for your mobile phone.  If you are looking for a very challenging plan that will give you variety each day and will enable you to read parts of the Bible several times in 2012, check out the plan I will be using.  While this plan is attributed to Professor Grant Horner, it is very similar to the plan my Papaw Drake used for years, before he died in 1985. 

Regardless of the plan you use, it is important that you have a plan.  After you pick your plan, plan your time.  Some will be more faithful to keep a morning time, those who cannot function in the mornings will need to plan an evening time.  Early mornings work best for me, before the hectic busy-ness of the day begins.  Regardless of the time you pick, you must pick a time or it will never happen. 

Pick your plan, plan your time and prepare your place.  May I suggest a place that is as free from distraction as possible?  As a recent iPad convert, I have found that I must disable all of the "Push Notifications" in order to use it for effective Bible reading.  Otherwise, I become too distracted by the interruptions.  Email, texts, Twitter, telephone, television and Facebook need to be absent from the place you prepare.  Every effort should be made to provide for yourself a place free from distraction.  When that happens, you can immerse yourself in the Word. 

Pick your plan, plan your time, prepare your place.  Finally, proclaim your intentions.  Part of the reason for writing this post is for accountability.  I would love for you who read this to periodically post a "how goes it" comment.  The threat of having to answer you should keep me going during the times when it will be much more appealing to sleep than get up and read ten chapters.  But the fact is, I don't see most of you who read this blog.  I need to seek accountability with those whom I see regularly--and so do you.  Proclaim your intentions to them.  Invite them to challenge you and hold you accountable to your plan.  When you fail, seek their encouragement.  In doing so, you will encourage their growth as well.

Pick, plan, prepare, proclaim--let's do those things and celebrate the joy of daily being in God's Word together this year.

2 Timothy 2:15 KJV