While reading the Bible in six months I learned a lot. Today, I would like to share with you ten of the things that I learned.



1. There are so many parallels in the Bible to my life. While reading the story of the children of Israel, I felt like I was reading part of my own story.


2. Our God is so loving, even in the Old Testament.


3. Reading through the Bible like this made me see that sometimes, the way many teachers have interpreted a passage of scripture, can be wrong or misleading, or there are other ways to look at it.


4. God has so much compassion for his children.


5. Reading the Bible through this quickly has helped me see the bigger picture.


6. I wouldn’t have wanted to have been a prophet. Their jobs were hard and often times weird.


7. There are so many good stories in the Bible, many of them hidden beneath other stories.


8. God has a sense of humor.


9. You don’t have to be perfect to do great things for God. In fact, the people God most often used were uneducated, lowly, smelly, bottom rung, sinful people that had a heart for him.


10. To understand any verse, story or chapter, you have to read in context.

Currently, I am reading through the book of Isaiah and loving every chapter of it. That may sound funny seeing that it seems that Isaiah is a book full of doom, gloom and tears, with a few scattered prophesies of Jesus. If that is how you view this book, you are not alone; I used to feel the same way.



The past couple of years have greatly changed my thoughts on this. I have found so many encouraging things in this book, and if you look, you can find them too. In the midst of some of the woes to his wayward people, you will find praise and encouragement for his faithful ones. In the midst of curses to other nations, there are promises to be those who love God.


What gems in the Bible have you been finding?

I am still a little behind in my Bible reading. I should be in the book of Psalms, but right now I am in Ester. I plan to get caught up in the next week or so which means a lot more time in my Bible, which is a good thing.

I continue to be amazed at the fact that I am learning so much reading through the Bible this fast. In fact, I am seeing things that I haven’t seen before and am being encouraged more than I have in a long time. For example; the other day, I was reading in 2 Chronicles where Hezekiah celebrate the Passover, and I was struck by something.

“A very large crowd of people assembled in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the second month. They removed the altars in Jerusalem and cleared away the incense altars and threw them into the Kidron Valley.” 2 Chronicles 30:13-14 NIV

The people had been living in and rebellion. They come together to celebrate the Passover for the first time since the judges ruled. What happens as they celebrate this holy feast? They become filled with passion with the things of God, and they go out and destroy the idols that they have been bowing down to for years.

Think about that for a moment. No decree from the king told them to, no billboard or picket signs encouraged them, no law was passed in congress, no priest, preacher, or celebrity got up and gave a speech pleading with them to do it. They did it because they were so moved by the celebration, so filled with the zeal of their God, that they went out and destroyed the very things that they had been relying on a short time before.

Too often, we (I am no exception) sit around thinking that it will take a law to remove the immoral things from this world; that it will take a big name preacher or a skilled speaker to get people to listen, or a lot of blog posts, amazing articles, and news stories to get people to change. That however, is not the case. As in Bible times, true change will come when people’s hearts turn to God. Big things will only be accomplished when the church of Christ in filled with zeal for the things of God.

How do we accomplish this? How do we change people’s hearts and have the zeal of God consume us? By living our lives each day for Him. By getting to know our Father in Heaven so well that we can’t stand the idols we have placed in our lives and sharing his love with those around us so that they can know him.

I would go on, but I fear that this post has gone on long enough. Have a wonderful day!

Right now, I am very behind in my Bible reading mainly due to the crazy past couple of weeks. On Tuesday of last week, my granddad had surgery and we went up to be with him (I’ll talk about this more tomorrow). We got home late Wednesday and spent all of Thursday and Friday recovering so, I am sorry to say, My Bible reading suffered greatly.

To be honest, I am only in chapter twenty-seven of Deuteronomy and that is after a lot of reading yesterday. However, I am getting a lot out of what I have been reading. There are so many parallel between the Israelites and us today. There are so many things in Deuteronomy that God has been using in my own life. So many verses seem to be written for me, and what I am going through right now.

One of the things that I am really excited about is that I have the desire to read my Bible. Yesterday, I just couldn’t get enough of it. I read it several times throughout the day. I have a hunger and a need to be in God’s word that I have never had before, and to me that is precious.

What are you reading in your Bible right now?

From the time I was very young, I have had a fascination with all things space. I loved to go out at night and have my dad point out the constellations in the night sky, and try to remember where they were the next night. I loved (and still do) to read books on the planets and galaxies and the space probes that had been sent to look at them.

Yesterday, we watched a documentary on Space Ship One; the first ever spaceship that was funded and built by a private company and was flown by a private citizen. It was so neat to watch a guy with a big dream, that everyone said was impossible, design, build and fly a spacecraft without the help of any government. He had the help of young people just out of college, men who had never finished high school, and people that try things that most people with a great education would laugh at.

You know, it made me think of our own Christen lives. We sometimes look like crazy people to the rest of the world. We trust and put our hope in something that we cannot see, and we make friends with people with little to no education, people who have made big mistakes in their past, and we welcome (at least we should) the people that the world has given up on.

We are a group that does not need or want the help of any government to reach our high goal, the goal that many think impossible, and that is to live our lives to honor and glorify Christ.

I hope that made sense. Have a great day!

Time is one of the greatest and most valuable gifts that we are given. We so easily fill our time with activities, academics, movies, and general busyness and don’t spend time doing the most important things, like spending time with God, our family, our friends and those who wish to be our friends. The only thing that we get to take to heaven with us is people, so it makes sense that in this life, we should make other people a high priority.

We all need to remember as we head back to school, college, or even just going about our daily routine, that God has placed other people in our life and we need to give them some of our time. That means we need to make sure that our siblings know that we care by playing a game with and spending time talking to them. We need to show that new girl in church, school, or co-op that she isn’t forgotten and that we are willing to take the time to talk to her. We need to show our God that we will spend a few minutes of our day with Him, even when we feel pressed for time.

Take so time today for those who are the most important to you.

I love to play the piano. I love the sound the instrument makes as I press the keys and hear some familiar melody. But just a few sort years ago, I was not able to play the piano.

You see, I had wanted to learn to play the piano for a long time but we just didn't have the money to pay for lessons. God had every thing worked out though(as usual), and a new neighbor moved in who just happened to have a degree in music and who was willing to teach me.

I have loved learning and getting better at piano. It is so fun to be able to play great classic pieces such as Canon in D and hymns such as Come Thou Fount. All the hard work has really payed off.