Daily Bible reading has been a staple part of life for my wife Nola and I for nearly forty years. We have developed this discipline not out of a sense of legalistic duty but as a means to deepen our relationship with God. There have been seasons when it has been hard to maintain, and when we haven't got much out of it. But increasingly as the years pass it is an activity we eagerly look forward to at the beginning of each day.
For most of those years I've used a pen and paper to help me fix the lessons God has been teaching me through his Word on a particular day. I've a stack of cheap 1B4 school exercise books filled with notes in my study closet to prove it. Most of the entries begin with a list of facts and observations on a passage - generally about six in total. After that I've written reflections on a central spiritual truth that's emerged in the process of identifying the ideas in the passage that I've read. These, in turn, form the basis of worship and prayer.
For the most part these reflections don't contain anything personal. While they are intended for my own benefit, there's nothing about them that couldn't be shared with others. Given the struggle so many Christians have with devotional Bible reading, I believe the time has arrived to make them accessible to others. I don't want people substituting my devotional thoughts for their own, but for those who do find it difficult to get anything significant from their Bible reading, it may be of help to have something to prompt their thinking.
It's only recently that I have discovered how useful blog sites are for this kind of activity. I appreciate that only a few may ever access a site regularly, and most, never at all. Numbers, however, are not the motivating factor in this exercise as far as I am concerned. The blessing that I gain from of writing out thoughts clearly is ample reward for the effort. If others can be blessed as well, so much the better.
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