Dive into God's word!

I wanted to write some about how my life has been changed ever since I have been a missionary and since I have really been diving into God's word every day.  The glory story for me this week is that I finished reading the entire bible!  I have tried on more than one occasion since high school to work my way through the bible, starting in Genesis and ending in Revelation.  Any of those times I don't think I made it past Exodus.  I have learned since what is required to make it through:  1) Desire 2) Motivation 3) Method.

1) Desire: I think most God fearing Christians have it in their mind they would like to read the entire bible.  If not this...then to at least read it more.  This desire comes from the Holy Spirit.  If this is the method that God has chosen to speak to us through...then of course He want's us to have the desire to dive in.  The thing I have found that I didn't necessarily expect is that the more you dive into scripture the more you want to dive into scripture.  It accomplishes the task it is set out to do....change our hearts and conform them to Christ.

2)  Motivation:  This is the real hard part.  Everything in life that is worth doing is hard.  The motivation I have found to consistently read the bible every day has come again from somewhere I didn't expect.  It has come from really trying to live out my evangelistic calling (which we all have by the way).  When you start to go out and teach and preach about Jesus you realize real quick how inadequate you are.  Flying solo isn't just not effective it will wear you out and you will give up real quick.  The more you live the call of Christ to "make disciples of all nations" to more you realize you own sinfulness, the ugliness of sin, and the constant need for redemption in our lives.  I have found peace in reading God's word everyday that I can't find elsewhere.  Understanding for particular situations that are otherwise so hard to understand.  And compassion for the people around me...my family, my friends, my community.  This is now why I fight to read the bible everyday.  Without it I am lost.  My motivation is now to sit in the presence of God and listen to what He has to say to me each day.  What more motivation do we need?

3)  Mr. Frank, founder of Family Missions Company, taught me a way to read the bible that breaks it down into much smaller sections and allows the Holy Spirit to move you around the bible and teach you certain things that He has preordained you to learn.  He taught me to break the bible into about 5-6 larger sections.  I have one marker for the 4 Gospels,  everyday I read a small part from the Gospels, only one or two sections.  From there I broke the rest of the bible into other subsections.  1) Genesis - Deuteronomy 2) Joshua - Judith 3) Job - Sirach 4) Isaiah - 2 Maccabees 5) Acts of the Apostles - Revelation.   After the bible is divided into sections like this you can ask the Holy Spirit to guide you to which section He wants you to read.  When you get there read from the first chapter available on the first page to the until you reach the first chapter after you turn the pages.  So it is about 2 pages in total.  I read two sections a day most days (about 4 pages a day).  This method really helps you get through the tougher books like Leviticus and Numbers.  "Poco a Poco" as they say in Spanish (Little by Little).

Since I've attempted to read the whole Bible, the Word of God has helped me become so alive in my faith, even the readings at Mass every Sunday have so much more meaning for my life. There is so much more adventure, wisdom, and history in it than I ever thought and I thoroughly enjoyed this experience.  I want to encourage each of you to seriously consider reading the Bible more faithfully every day.  It would be great if we could always listen to God's word as readily as Eliza does when Madi is telling her an exciting story!