Day 21: A retrospective

So, three weeks into this project, and how is it going? I have realized a few things:

1. Prayer needs to be an essential partner to Bible reading. I haven't made prayer a priority and I find myself stealing moments of prayer here and there. But I think I need purposeful prayer. There are so many things I need to pray for about God (thanksgiving and praise), about myself (patience, joy, kindness, unselfishness), and for others (my husband, children, friends, people in the world I don't even know exist). I also need to pray God's promises back to him. Will the transformation I am looking for happen without real communion? I don't think so. So this is important. I am missing it and I may soon be adding another element to this project.

2. Satan really doesn't want me reading the Bible. Okay, this always sounds dumb: "The devil made me do it!" and that's not what I'm getting at. But really, there are a million distractions, little and big, that will tempt me to put my Bible reading off--and Satan will capitalize on those. I need to be vigilant. I think leaving my Bible reading until the end of the day is bad news. I've been good about reading Romans 8 this week, but I haven't been about my day-by-day Bible reading. I am disappointed in myself because I know there are a few hours each day I spend in doing things that aren't Bible reading. Areas for improvement.

3. I haven't really found the joy I'm looking for yet. I'm not at the point where I crave Bible reading. They say it takes 21 days to make a habit, and I haven't been consistent enough yet. But I don't just want to do it out of habit, either. I want to hunger and thirst for God's Word, like the psalmist in Psalm 42 whose soul pants for the living God. (When I read Psalm 119, I usually feel incredibly guilty, because I don't usually feel that way about the Bible.) I think I have conditioned myself to not love reading the Bible. I've made it boring and dutiful in my mind. I need a change of attitude, but I think that will only come through actually being in the Word, and through prayer (see #1). Lord, give me a desire for Your Words of life.

So, that sums up three weeks of being in the Word. No discernible change that I can tell yet, but I know God is faithful, so I will keep at it. This can't possibly be anything but good for me.