Somehow the more time I have on my hands, the less I am in the Bible. A huge part of this due to being out of my routine. Like a toddler on a tight sleep and nap schedule, when things change or my routine is interrupted, I find myself in all kinds of  panic when I’m left to fend for myself with an unplanned day.

This summer has not not been busy, though. Somehow unplanned days seem to fill themselves quickly. An anniversary trip, dentist appointments, working one day a week, errands and birthdays: most of my days have been pretty full despite being more or less “unplanned.”

Even with a mildly occupied summer, I still have exponentially more free time on my hands than I did whilst working full time; yet I am in the Bible, much, much less.

During the “school year,” I do an intensive 2 hour Bible study every Monday night, lead a small group Bible study Sunday nights, along with my own personal devotional time first thing in the morning.

But the small group breaks for the summer, my Bible study resumes in September, and with later wake-up times and the occasional lazy and apathetic attitude, being left to dig into the Word on my own was sadly not going well.

Sometimes I fill my day with everything but time in the Word.

I can be “summer busy”  doing things I didn’t have time for during the year and drop off bags at Goodwill and look for coffee tables online and watch a few shows, and somehow not spend a minute in the Word.

And when I was in the Bible over the past couple weeks, I was opening it up randomly and just flipping through casually trying to find something that caught my eye.

While this is great for the occasional devotion time and God can definitely teach us in this way, it doesn’t foster any accountability for me which is something I desperately need right now.

Finally, a few days ago, I decided I needed a plan. I needed to create some habits so that my walk with the Lord did not suffer and the process of my sanctification was not stalled.

I did the “Bible in a Year” reading plan in 2017, and honestly, it was hard  (will write a post on this sometime). I felt as if I grew in knowledge, but not much in heart. I was checking off books of the Bible left and right, but doing it like it was for a graded class. It was an obligation, and in total transparency, I didn’t allow much of that knowledge to deepen my love or saturate my heart. The reading wasn’t and isn’t the challenging part for me: It’s reflecting and sitting with it and allowing it to change me.

So this summer, I am going for a shorter goal of re-reading just the New Testament in chronological order. It is a couple chapters a day, but more than the reading I want to learn with my head and my heart.

I want to learn facts and history, but I want to grow in love and urgency.

I want to be more knowledgable about names and dates and order, but I want the spiritual truths to to rush over me when life gets hard.

I want both this time. I want to talk about it and reflect on it and not just cross days off my reading plan.

So this is my declaration for accountability. I am reading through the New Testament this summer, but more than that, I am journaling about it, praying through it and digesting it.

I would LOVE to have others do this with me! Please let me know if you would like the plan I am doing.

Here’s to being and living in the Word!

Jenna