Reading the Bible in a year update

So I am still chugging along in my quest to read the Bible in a year. I am pretty much caught up, just 3 days behind, but there are days built in for that. I am learning interesting stuff, and reading things I've never read each day. Sometimes I encounter something I have read several times before, because I mark all over my Bible and can tell. I underline, highlight, bracket, and note why I was where I was. I have a bunch of abbreviations like MM for Mike Minter. BM for Beth Moore. Sorry Beth that your abbreviation is the same as bowel movement, but I'm sure you knew that already! SG is for Shepherd Group, and so on and so on. Sometimes I have no idea why I've highlighted or underlined something, but I find it reassuring to know I was at least perusing the Bible when I come across it.

When I went to the women's retreat for RBC this year, a bunch of us played a game called The Bowl Game. I don't know if this was the official title or just one that this group of friends use, but it's a nifty game. Everyone writes three things on different slips of paper. One time we did Bible character, movie and book. You do several rounds with the same words, the first is like Taboo where you can't say the actual words in the answer or variations of it, the second is charades, the third you can only say one word, and the last is like like charades except you use a member of the opposite team to act it out. One of the Bible characters that someone put in was Baal. I had NO CLUE who Baal was, but everyone else seemed to know. (For the record, I put in Peter because I am lame like that) But I finally got to the part of the Bible with Baal in it! I was very excited! Ok so Baal is a god the Israelites worshiped after God kind of made clear that you weren't supposed to worship other gods before Him. Israelites, how you disappoint me over and over! Most of the tiem when I read the OT, I think "Dang it's hard to be a Jew! I'm glad we have Jesus." And maybe that is the whole point of Christians reading the OT. Or at least one of the points of reading it.

I am also through my phase of finding the Psalms to be whiny. Yes I know David was being persecuted and was hiding in caves and all that, but I was in this place where I was just thinking "David you whine soooooooo much." And I would read the Psalms in this whiny David voice which was just exacerbating the problem. Everyone I would tell this to would look at me like I was crazy. So when I would start reading them int he whiny David voice, I began to consciously replace that voice with the soothing voice of Ed Nalle reading Psalms in church. That worked better and I retrained my brain a bit.

But these are the things that happen when you read the Bible for the first time. You have to reconcile your earthly attitudes with a Christian attitude. You have to realize how little you actually have read of the book that is supposed to be your handbook for living as a Christian. It's humbling, but I'm digging the process.