Stealing God?
The new year might be a good time to remind myself that I’m on a reading plan. One of those that goes through the whole Bible, cover to cover, get the whole picture in one wide swathe.
It’s a 90-day plan.
I started it sometime in July.
Of 2008.
Who am I kidding? I can’t do it.
I’m still in Judges.
It’s not that I’m not disciplined enough to read often. It’s that I find it impossible to complete the requisite twelve pages per day when some days I can’t turn the page. And that page-turning immobilization lasts for days on end sometimes.
On days like those (most days, really) I work hard to believe the cover-to-cover in 90 days (or a year for that matter) goal is arbitrary and encourage myself with the thought that at least I’m reading, right? Maybe only twelve words a day, instead of twelve pages. And maybe the same twelve words I read yesterday.
But I’m reading. I am.
I gaze toward the horizon, where Ruth waits and I feel hungry. But first I have a nasty four chapters left of Judges, and I’ve spent the last several days wading and splashing through Spurgeon and Henry and Wesley and others as I try to make sense of them.
That’s how I stumbled onto this from Matthew Henry. And really, about the Danites taking Micah’s gods and idol paraphernalia, I think this is all I really want to say. (Read Judges 18:14-26 for some background.)
The Danites determined to take Micah’s gods with them. Oh the folly of these Danites! How could they imagine those gods should protect them, that could not keep themselves from being stolen!
God will never be carried off by thugs.
He’s bigger.
Yeah, sometimes a single word captures me and keeps me there.
I *loved* your idea to read the verse before to read it backwards!
(Great thug picture, by the way.)
2010/01/08 at 11:56 AM
You’re braver than I to even try to be that disciplined–I know better than to think I can just “read through” anything. I hop off on way too many rabbit trails…and those references that run down the middle of my Bible’s page (plus the footnotes taking up the bottom 1/4 of each page) just beg to be followed up on. Now with my new Holman Dictionary and MacArthur Commentary by my bed, I fear I’m doomed to be just like you. But I’m ok with that. Because I learn in the small pieces as well as in the survey.
2010/01/08 at 10:28 PM
Monica – perhaps it’s reading backwards which makes it so difficult for me to move forward!
Jennifer – I’m learning this, the object is to be in the Word, not necessarily plow through it on somebody else’s schedule. I do envy those who can stay focused just to read, though.
2010/01/08 at 10:46 PM
Greetings. I’m visiting today via This Restless Heart. I don’t follow a reading schedule, but I do record when I’ve finished reading through the entire Bible. I write the month and year that I finished on the inside cover; i.e., “2nd time through, March 2002.” After I’ve read a certain version a few times, I start again with a different version. I don’t worry about how long it takes me, just that I keep going. For memorizing, I always use the NAS version.
2010/01/16 at 12:12 PM
I read Judges recently and your sense of humor about stealing God is priceless. By now you may or may not have stumbled through the final chapters. Gruesome stuff. But keep a stiff upper lift. Ruth is so much better. And yet, after Judges, I needed a rest from OT history.
2010/01/21 at 10:19 PM
Solveig, I’m afraid Ruth still stands in a distant doorway. Judges will have the best of me for some time yet!
2010/01/22 at 8:35 AM