Reading the Bible from cover to cover can be easier with these 12 tips. Let me start off by saying that I have been a Christian most of my life and have never read the Bible from cover to cover. When the church doors were open, I want to be there. It brings a welcomed escape to be surrounded by people that believe the same things I do.

The thing about it is that I know I was not the typical kid. I didn’t have the rebellious stage (really) and I didn’t want to have the make mistakes to learn from them. Hearing testimony after testimony of how people give their lives to Jesus can be so exciting to hear, but I can tell you mine is not that interesting overall. Simply put, I chose God early and avoided the mess I could easily have gotten into. His grace protected me and always has.

After all that hymn singing and church going, I realized one day that I needed Jesus to come into my life. Going to church was not enough. I needed to choose Jesus to be a part of my life in the long run. At thirteen, I gave my life to Jesus. From then, I know that He is walking beside me, with every decision I make.

Why not snag my 390 page, Bible journal freebie while you’re here?

Some features include:

• The Bible sectioned off as in the Read Scripture app
• Beautiful handwritten script
• Lines to write down thoughts, questions and prayers throughout
• My wood burned artwork at the start of every new book of the Bible

When you finish this journey, could you do my a favor and let me know about it? I’d love to hear from you!

I say all of this to say that I went so many years of being a Christian, but not reading the Bible as a whole.

Listening to a pastor’s interpretation of the Bible every Sunday is simply not enough. So many things happen in a given week and we have to choose time with God everyday in order to truly give Him time to speak.

When my daughter was born, I realized that one day she would have a lot of questions and I needed to have Biblical answers. So, I decided to make a New Years Resolution in 2018 to read the Bible from cover to cover.

I am not going to lie and say everything was sunshine and roses. It wasn’t. There were parts of the Bible that I just wanted to pass over. That included the endless amount of names and family lines, the rules of the Old Testament, the stories of battle and war. Every time I wanted to rush, God gave me the gentle reminder to not rush this process. Those names would eventually lead to Jesus and those rules were there as a placeholder until Jesus came.

Here are some tips that kept me steadfast in reading the Bible from cover to cover:

1. Reminding myself that there isn’t a due date on reading the Bible

There isn’t a date set in time that you have to finish this by. It is here to read in the spare moments and the intentional moments.

      2. Remembering my “why” for reading it.

My “why” is that my children will have many questions, and I need to give Biblical answers. I am only human and I need guidance of how to live my life in reflection of Jesus.

      3. Getting up before my family. 

Does this always happen? No way! I try to set my clock before they even open their eyes so that I can collect my thoughts before being rushed into the day.

    4. Making coffee the night before.

Okay. This is not the most Christian answer, but truth. I set up for the coffee to be ready in the morning with a click of the button.

    5. Reading over a sentence again if my thoughts distracted me.

When my children started getting up before dawn, I would be distracted with my own thoughts and little voices. I would give myself permission to read the sentence over and over again until I could read it as a complete thought.

    6. Making that time a priority over everything. 

In all honesty, it is in my nature just to start playing with my kiddos and getting started on housework. I had to allow myself to let the laundry sit and just have that time.

     7. Getting my children in the routine of entertaining themselves until that time is over. 

Everyday, I get my coffee, get my daughter her cereal, and leave the room to read. My son is given all the toys on the floor to crawl to, and my daughter is occupied eating. Once she gets finished, she immediately wants me to play with her. I tell her that I am reading my Bible right now and she has to find something to play with by herself until I’m done. That’s when she usually wants to get her Bible too.

   8. Forgiving myself for the days it cannot happen.

It sounds silly, but I would get so defeated when I’d forget or just not set aside time for reading. I would just have to forgive myself and set a mental time aside for the next day. It’s a new day everyday, so try again.

   9. Allowing myself time to process what was happening. 

Some days, I would need to swallow the circumstances of what happened within the Bible. I would have to reread and run some things in conversation with my handsome hubby. I needed to process things because not all Scripture is shared from the pulpit.

   10. Using the Read Scripture app.

I have never been a fan of reading someone else’s interpretation of the Bible within devotionals. The authors do the best they can, but they are only human. I used this app because it laid out the Bible in an easy format, and I’d click on the passage I finished for the day, knowing where to start the next day.

   11. Reading from a physical Bible.

This may sound crazy, but I am too tempted to scroll through social media, check emails and reply to messages if I am reading the Bible from my phone. I would use the app to see what to read, and then get out my physical Bible to read from. It was so helpful!

   12. Reminding myself of my screen time usage.

Every week my phone tells me how much screen time I have on average. That number reminded me of all the time I pour into the meaningless things on my phone and how much more God deserves of my time.

 

God deserves my time.

I look back at this time of reading the Bible and I know there are moments by moments when Scripture came to mind. There are too many times to count when what I read directly applied to relevant, current circumstances. Not only did I read it, but my family started reading with me and God got brought into more conversation.

Did you snag my Bible journal freebie ?

Some features include:

• The Bible sectioned off as in the Read Scripture app
• Beautiful handwritten script
• Lines to write down thoughts, questions and prayers throughout
• My wood burned artwork at the start of every new book of the Bible

When you finish this journey, could you do my a favor and let me know about it? I’d love to hear from you!