The Bible in a Year: What I learned and why I’m NOT doing it this year
Bible in the Year: the first time
I grew up in church. I was there multiple times a week, went through 8+ years of AWANA, and basically my schedule revolved around all youth group activities. Add that fact to my Type A personality and my yearly goal-setting for a decade, and you’d think I’d have read the whole Bible in a year.
I hadn’t.
In 2019, I set a goal to go through the whole Bible in a year, a goal I had set for many years. Finally, in 2019, I followed through!
It wasn’t perfect. That’s for sure. I’ve always struggled with letting my mind wander while I read my Bible, which is why I had never succeeded in my goal before. I decided I needed a new method, and went with an audio Bible. Since I already use my podcast app almost daily, I went with the Daily Audio Bible Podcast.
Biggest lessons learned reading the Bible in a year
Done is Better Than Perfect
I learned to live the idea that done is better than perfect. Many days, I listened to the day’s readings with 100% focus and attention. Other days, it ended up being background noise. Most days fell somewhere in the middle. Did I get the most out of every single day? No. I learned a lot more in 365 days of varied attentiveness than I would have gotten without trying. If I read the Bible in a year, I can try to learn more than I did this last time! Progress really is better than perfection.
Discipline can be built
I learned to build my discipline muscle! Actually sticking with a formation for a full year taught me that I could do it with something else that I’ve struggled with. (Spoiler alert: This year I’m trying to apply that discipline to exercise – which I’ve also struggled with).
The Bible is a complete work
One thing that was really neat about this little experiment of listening to the whole Bible was seeing the Bible as a complete work for the first time. It was so cool to see God’s faithfulness to His people time and time again, no matter how ridiculous they were being!
It’s a big commitment, but not impossible
I also learned that going through the whole Bible is a big commitment. I was surprised that it only ended up being 20-30 minutes a day, but to TRULY give it the attention and study the Bible deserves would have taken much longer and without multi-tasking.
This year
This year, I’m not going through the Bible in a year. I think it would have to be more of an every other year commitment for me to get a lot of of it. By the end of year, I found my attentive days becoming less and less common. I don’t want it to be a mindless routine that I follow, but something that is actually helping me grow. By keeping it fresh each year, I’m hoping to keep my interest and therefore keep my faith growing. This year, I’m experimenting with some other ideas, that I’ll share as the year goes on!