The First Week

My Year With God

*Note — This post was written on the 6th of January

When, we turned the calendar over to a new month, and a new year, this adventure began. As I had planned, I began the “Bible In One Year” reading plan with Nicky Gumbel, from the YouVersion Bible App. I’m thirteen days in, and already I can feel myself engaging with God on a deeper level.

The devotionals in this plan give real life examples, and then back up what is said with scripture, which is an incredibly ‘immediate’ way to make these verses, written so many years ago relevant to modern day life.

So far, I have looked at The Fall, Noah, and Cain and Abel. I have also read into the sermon on the mount, and have read the beatitudes, and I feel like I’ve actually seen them in a new way.

As well as this plan, I have chosen two 365 day devotionals to read. The first is “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young. This is a book written as if Jesus is speaking directly to the reader, on a given theme. In the introduction to this book, the author says that she simply sat, with pen in hand and wrote what came to her. She then adds two or three quotes from scripture.

When I read the reviews of this book, they were very mixed, although a lot of the negative reviews seemed to focus more on the fact that the author was using the first person, and “putting words in God’s mouth”, rather than the actual content. So far, I can honestly say that I haven’t read anything that seems out of touch with what I believe God would say, and I have found that it adds another layer to my morning quiet time with God.

The second book I have chosen is “Trusting God Day by Day” by Joyce Meyer. I have to say that I chose this primarily because I like Meyer’s style of writing. This book also gives about a page or two a day, and begins with a passage of scripture to read, before Meyer goes into explaining and discussing it. This book has been more challenging that “Jesus Calling”, but when I say challenging, I mean it in a good way. I feel that I am learning more, and more deeply, about God, and His will for my life.

It is also interesting to me, and more than a coincidence, that at Church this morning, the Pastor gave us our “Church verse for the year”, which is from Proverbs 5:4–5, and is focused on trust.

Trust is something that I know I have an issue with, for many reasons, which I won’t go into here. It is something that I find myself continually working on, and I hope that through this study, I will be able to learn to trust God even more deeply.

For this week, I would like to try and add some journaling into my quiet time. I am going to try and wait on God and speak to Him in the way that I find the most effective (for me, this always has, and always will be, through writing). I am also planning to do some reading on prayer, to see if I can improve there too.

Watch this space…