It happened last evening while I was standing in line waiting to make a sandwich at the Fellowship Supper.  I noticed one of the many awesome teenagers who are a part of the congregation and said hello and asked how he was doing.  After some exchanging of pleasantries, he wondered if he could ask me a question.

He asked me if I had ever read the Bible through all the way in a single year.  I told him that my habit for the past several years was to do that very thing and mentioned some of the different reading strategies I have followed to accomplish it.  I asked him why he asked and he told me that he had been doing that very thing.  I could sense the anticipation of completing the task in just a couple more weeks.

What an extraordinary question!  How thrilling it was to hear that though busy with school, sports, and other extracurricular activities, this teenage boy had taken God’s Word serious enough to commit to reading it in its entirety this year.  I know in addition to the blessing he will receive from this discipline he is setting his life’s values and God is very important to Him.

As a Pastor, this does my heart good and helps me when I am struggling with sermons or lessons.  But more important than that, I am excited to see the Holy Spirit active and alive in this person’s walk with Christ.  So much so that when I was asking him about how an event very important to him was going, he briefly said, “well” and then proceeded to ask me his questions.  He could have spent much longer telling me about something that I know means very much to him and then I realized, that’s exactly what he did!  Not the life event but the daily pursuit of God from the Word.

I am gearing up to finish my annual ritual of reading God’s Word by looking for a new strategy to employ for 2023.  This past year’s plan was given to me by a couple of very special people, also in the congregation as a Christmas gift.  What about you?  Would you be willing to invest 20 minutes every day next year to reading through God’s Word?  Shouldn’t 2022 be the last year to come and go without you reading through the Bible?  Isn’t it awesome that our youth are seeing the value in God’s Word and taking the time to regularly ready it?

If you need help finding a plan to read through it, you could even employ the method of my young friend:  just start in Genesis and don’t stop until you have finished Revelation.  I challenged my him to do it again next year, and the year after, etc.  If I can help you figure it out, please let me know.  Your life won’t be the same!