Day and Night

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.  Joshua 1:8-9 NAS

What rambles through the corridors of your mind day and night? The to-do list? Work or relationship worries? Financial needs or health concerns? Whatever fills your thoughts, there is one thing that was designed to fill that space – God’s Word!

The above verse speaks of the prosperity that comes when God’s word is our primary meditation. From my personal experience, I’d say the prosperity and success God has blessed me with from His word has been peace, joy, contentment and wisdom. When I am fixing my focus on Him and His truth, I have clarity on the circumstances around me and they don’t rule me. When I am meditating (the word means to think on, murmur and constantly roll over in your thoughts) on the worries of life, they have me – from the inside out. But when God’s word fills that space, the whole world looks different. Could there be any better prosperity or success?

So how to we get God’s word into us so we can meditate on it day and night? Well, this whole series is one idea after another of how we can put that into practice, but for today, I want to talk about making a plan!

During one of the sweetest times in my Christian walk I read God’s word three times a day. First thing in the morning before my feet hit the floor, during my lunch break and then at the close of the day. (For those of you singles out there – this season was while I was single… there’s unique and beautiful blessings that God has for each season of life!) For each of those reading times I had a set kind of reading – one time I would read more devotionally, another was for deeper digging and study, and another was going through the assigned reading from the woman who was discipling me at the time. This pattern was my reading plan.

As the season’s of life change, so have my patterns. But the goal is still the same – to consume as much of God’s word as I can. I use the word “consume” because we need to not just skim Scripture, but really digest it. Sometimes one solitary verse is all I can swallow because to be responsible with that nugget of spiritual gold is going to take all the energy, focus and effort I got in me! Keep in mind that God is concerned about the quality of our reading, not just the quantity!

So here’s some ideas to help you make your reading plan

• If you like to lists, then this is for you 🙂 It’s a Book-by-Book reading plan to get your through the Bible in a year.
• If you want a plan, but don’t like the rigidity of a certain order of reading that you have to adhere to – read five chapters of Scripture five days a week and you will also make your way through the Bible in a year.
• If you’d like to start smaller- here’s reading plans to complete a section of Scripture in a month:1 Proverb a day to read the whole book in a month
  5 Psalms a day to read the whole book in a month
  8 Chapters of the New Testament a day to read the whole NT in a month

Happy Reading 🙂

PS – on a personal note… It usually takes me about 15 months to read through the whole Bible with time to pause and chew, but I’m coming up on a decade-finishing birthday and decided I really wanted to read the Bible through to finish out this decade. I am awaiting a new parallels Bible for my read-thru. If you want, you can join me 🙂