Reading Through The Bible 2015

This is going to become a habit with me, isn't it?
I thought the whole 'Writing Bug' had gone and died, but alas, it has not.

So, my one and only resolution for this upcoming new year is this: I want to read through the Bible chronologically.
I have read the entire Bible, mostly as part of a dare I accepted as a 10 year old, years before I actually became born again. Yes, I was unsaved, but among the churched and that's the sort of thing we dared each other to do - read Leviticus. It bewilders me and I wish I now had a tenth of the time I wasted fulfilling dares in order to *really* read Leviticus as a believer.
But that's what this resolution is all about.
All my life I've made lists of self-improving or world-improving resolutions at the beginning of the year and I feel in some small way as though I've gotten over that.
There really is only One thing that is going to improve anything - either in myself or the world around me - and that's God's word. Improve in that and everything else will fall into line - I am convinced.
I don't want to do a 365 devotional because I don't want to be spoon fed anything. I don't want to make assumptions and gloss over things. I don't want to be interrupted. Having said that, I do plan on getting some good study tools and dusting off the ones I used in high school when Bible Study was an actual course - heavens how I loved that. My seeking soul just longed for understanding. I wore out my mini-concordance and fell head-over-heels in love with Strong's - and not the handy little Strong's App I now have on my phone, no sir, I mean the tie-yourself-to-it-in-a-twister volume that took up half my desk and had print so tiny it strained my eyes. Good times.
I have a couple of sturdy old Bible history books I plan on rereading and I'm going to be all about charts and maps.
I am so excited.

My favorite Sunday School Teacher - ever - was Mrs. McKay. She was a slightly older, southern-styled, honest to goodness Lady like they just don't make them any more. She was traditional, she was domestic, she was sweet and kind and she was the most exhaustive Bible scholar I've ever known. In my circle, that wasn't always encouraged. We were supposed to know the good wife scriptures and scriptures to support whether or not we covered our heads and wore long dresses, but we honestly weren't too into things like prophecy or Old Testament Chronology. Mrs. McKay was, and how! I thank God at least monthly for the 3 years I learned from her, not only about how to be a godly wife and mother and how to defend a conviction with scripture, but about the glories and infinite mysteries of the Word of God for its own sake.

Mrs. M read the Bible like it was honeyed poetry, the words dripped off her lips in a way that made me ache - it was so beautiful. She loved the Word of God with a blazing passion, she was infatuated with it and she radiated that enthusiasm to everyone around her. She loved the God behind the words-  that was the key. Anything *He* said was the most important, gorgeous, worthy thing in the universe. Anything He recorded - she memorized. Anything He repeated - she studied until she understood why. Anything He mentioned - she paid attention to and loved. Think of a love-struck woman hanging on to, agreeing with and immediately adopting everything her fiancé says - it was like that.

In our tiny church, Mrs. M taught the young adult group - six of us sitting in a line in front of her desk, our knees and farm boots stuck out at odd angles due to the tininess of the chairs we had. For an hour we listened and read and sometimes talked. While every other youth Sunday school I'd ever attended focused on things like dressing appropriately, giving up dating, obeying your parents, seeking the Lord's will for your life after high school and the like, Mrs. McKay scooped us up and dove without reservation into the book of Isaiah for a full year. We didn't come up for breath Once.

Have you ever read Isaiah?
And we didn't just *read* it, we studied it. We got intimately acquainted with it. We memorized its ins and outs, its kings and sins and all the stuff we couldn't hardly understand. We read what great saints from times past had gleaned from the Lord concerning its content. I fell in love over and over and over again. I went home and preached to my mom (the other and original Great Bible Lover in my life) hollering and crying and trying to make her understand what was going on. It was exhausting, challenging, mind-blowing and the best Bible Study experience I'd ever had.  I learned more about how the Lord desired that I live my life from that study than from all the youth-centered studies I've ever read or seen. She didn't ladle anything out - she didn't bend or coddle or sweeten or cajole or make it 'relevant to our lives'. She was having the time of her life and if we wanted to go along, that was great, but we had to keep up. God's word is ALWAYS relevant. To everyone - so listen up.
And I say, "Amen."

I really want to study the Bible like that again. Maybe I can - maybe the time for me has passed? I hate to think that's true - I have child(ren) to raise and teach and I am as in desperate need of learning as they are.
Lord, if I show up - if I press on and pay attention and listen - will you teach me like that again this year?

Desiring daily bread from heaven itself,

Because I cannot live on earthly bread alone - 

My soul is famished.