Another favorite Christmas gift that I received this season is the C.S. Lewis Bible, which I wrote about here and here. It’s a beautiful NRSV Bible, with relevant excerpts from Lewis’s writings in the margins. The only thing left to do is to actually read it. Isn’t that always the hard part?
I got a chance to “break it in” this morning. For a couple of months, I’ve been deliberately reading books of the Bible that I do not naturally want to read (or re-read). For example, I just finished Deuteronomy, and I’m working my way through 2 Chronicles and Proverbs.
The reason I wanted this Bible in the first place is to help me read the Bible devotionally. I don’t simply want to read the Bible as “part of my job,” which is what Bible-reading had mostly become for me.
I’m not much for making New Year’s resolutions, but I’m going to risk making one now: I’m resolving to read the Bible devotionally every day in 2011, focusing first on parts of the Bible that are often neglected in the course of my church work. Again, I don’t mean reading it simply for sermon preparation, Bible studies, or as part of church or prayer services. (I do that anyway.) I mean sitting down for some period of time each day and reading it in order to be formed by the Holy Spirit into the person that God wants me to be—the person that I would want to be if I could want what what I needed.
Lord, teach me to want what I need in 2011.