For 17 years my husband has been consistently and faithfully reading his Bible daily, without a reading plan. Our local pastor recently shared that he reads the Bible 3 times a year. WOW!
I have tried several plans but was never truly satisfied with them. I have enjoyed the chronological plan a few times but I knew from the beginning that I would not get to the New Testament until the end of the year. I often don’t want to wait to get into the life of Christ or the events and circumstances that led to the creation of the NT church. I needed to hear, sooner rather than later, Paul’s admonishment and encouragement to believers because I need those reminders often, in the context that they were written in.
With other plans, I also seemed to get bogged down with having to read several Psalms in one day because they can often be quite raw and vulnerable. I felt like I could not savor the emotions of each Psalm appropriately. I felt the same way with the book of Proverbs, except instead of processing emotions in a rushed haphazard way, I was forced to contemplate wisdom in what I felt was an unwise way, just to get through the plan.
To solve those issues, I knew I needed to create my own. I’m too impatient to read the Bible in a year. However, I also know trying to get through the Bible 3 times in one year is a plan doomed to fail, especially with all the other things going on in my life. So I’m settling on a happy medium – 2 times in one year.
My plan consists of reading daily 5-6 chapters of OT (more or less) plus 2 chapters of NT or Proverbs and one Psalm once a day. The 2 Proverb chapters are interspersed every ten days between NT reading.
There are 25 weeks of reading, 6 days a week (preferably Monday – Saturday) with one day of rest to allow for attention to be given to the sermon at church or to play catch up if one falls behind.
The 26th week is a full rest week (not included in the plan). Then the plan starts all over again. I included 2 little check boxes, labeled 1st & 2nd on the far right side of the page to give a visual reminder when completing a whole week of reading for the first time and again when doing the plan a second time.
It might seem like a lot of reading for one day, but seriously, how much time do we spend doing other things that have no heavenly value.
Enjoy!
I’ve done the Bible in 90 Days but I find it hard to do it during the school year. This sounds more doable! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for this plan. Will be a challenge but I am excited to begin. I appreciate your balanced and biblical truth filled interpretation of our modern day culture and current events. God bless you!