Completed the challenge....

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The last two years, our youth pastor has kind of low-key challenged the kids to start off the year by doing the 30-Day Shred. No, it's not a diet plan...it's a plan to read the ENTIRE BIBLE in 30 days.

This year, I happened to remember that on January 1.  So I decided I'd give it a go and downloaded the guide.  And I also gave myself a slightly different goal...read the entire Bible in January, which gave me an extra day,  lol.

We had a major conference at church in the middle of the month, too, so that kind of blocked out 3 whole days.  And when you're reading 42 chapters a day, missing several days like that throws a real wrench in the works. 

Fortunately, one of my talents is that I am a fast reader, so I had that going for me.  And I started off by doing 50 chapters a day instead of 42, just to get a bit of a running start to carry me through the conference days.

Then I got involved in a sewing project and completely missed reading the day before the conference.  Never even thought of it.  So I was a bit behind, despite having read extra earlier, when the conference actually started.

I was reading mostly from my NIV 84 study Bible; it's very familiar, which made it easy to push my reading pace; I was mostly reading words I can almost quote.

But I did have some doctors appointments this month, so whilst I was waiting at the Dr I opened up the Blue Letter Bible app on my phone and read from the NLT, just to see how that translation went.  I was in Ezekiel for part of that reading...and the NLT puts the measurements in feet and inches instead of cubits, which I really appreciated.

Finished Revelation 22 about an hour ago.

It was an interesting exercise.  The idea is to just get the 50,000 foot view, not to do in-depth study.  I kept wanting to stop and dig and...couldn't.  Nope.  Keep reading.

I was surprised at the relentless bombardment of judgement in the prophets as I read through.  It has never really struck me that way before, studying through them at a slower pace.  But pushing through 60 chapters or more a day (I was trying to catch up after the conference) it really hammered in.  I would get mixed up...was the particular judgement against Israel or Judah?  Or was it Egypt, Syria, Damascus, Edom, Babylon....?  There was the occasional relief of 'I will preserve a remnant' and 'I will give you a heart of flesh instead of your heart of stone' type verses, but mostly what I saw is...God is serious about consequences.  

Part of me thinks it would be easier for someone who is well acquainted with the scripture to finish, since that person would be covering familiar territory, but, on the other hand, speed reading through the Bible in a month does kinda take the intimidation factor out of it.  

And I think I want to get a NLT to read and compare, lol.  A new Bible to ponder and mark up always peels back layers of assumptions, especially if it's a translation I haven't read much.

I don't know if I will do it again next year.  Right now...I kinda think it's a one and done.  I prefer a slower pace, as y'all know from the slow plodding study of 'heart/hearts', lol.

But it was a good challenge and I'm glad I did it.