It's the end of the year, and I'm thinking about all sorts of things, trying to do a little planning, hoping to make the most of 2012.  I'm thinking about doing some gardening and yard work this year, trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing to jump-start my five-year-old son's formal education, hoping not to miss the special occasions for celebration that are coming.

The same old spiel: This year I would like to become a better wife and mother. I would like to begin to put the proper emphasis on managing our home: not too much, not too little. I would like to live healthily this year.

I prayed this morning for several things, having copied down I John 5:14-15 in my notebook. "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask for anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of Him (NIV--the pronoun capitalization is mine)."

For the past couple of days I have been making decisions about what my Bible reading plan is going to be like this year, having perused this blog post yesterday.

Let me say here that I didn't read Justin Taylor's suggestions very carefully. I did not find out what the strengths or weaknesses of any of those plans were. Let me offer this suggestion:

A schedule you have to print out to follow, that fragments your reading among various books each day, is not going to hold your attention or build interest in God's Word unless you are already quite the disciplined person. If you are more like me, if you want to actually read the Bible this year and get something out of it, Keep It Simple.

I tried for years to follow one of these lovely plans, and never made it very far beyond January no matter how much wiggle-room the reading plan supplied. If you really want to read the Bible this year, this is what I recommend:

Set aside a particular time for reading every day. I don't care when it is. I started out by reading in the evening; now I prefer to do it early in the morning. Set a reasonable goal for yourself, and commit to meeting that goal most days. 

This'll be my third year to read the entire thing through.

The first year I read a few chapters each night, and read a little extra on Saturdays. I'd read two chapters from one book, and two chapters from another, unless the first book really captured my attention. Some weeks I didn't read at all, but I never let it go for more than about a week at a time without reading. You might have to be a little more strict with yourself in that regard. My goal that year was simply to get through the material. I wanted to get the words into my brain so that I could be mentally working on thenm sort of in the background.

I'd read a couple of chapters from one of the Old Testament narrative books, and a couple of chapters from the New Testament, or I'd do narrative/prophecy, or some other such combination. Whatever seemed good to me at the time. I think the key was to stick with a book until I had read it from the beginning to the end, and make sure that I covered all 66 books (in the Protestant Bible). At this point I wasn't particularly concerned about reading comprehension.

The next year I was more attentive in my reading. I found that I didn't like separating my reading between two different book as I tended to lose a sense of the book by so doing. My goal that year was to pay attention to what I read, and to write down any questions or inspirations I may have concerning the text. If you look at my notebook you'll see that my notes gradually evolved during the course of the year. I started copying down verses that became important, writing out prayers etc. The only thing I made myself do was summarize, and I was lenient with myself even in that. If I really didn't have time to summarize I didn't summarize. But most of the time I made at minimum a brief summary of what I read in each chapter. It's been a wonderful exercise for me, and has greatly enriched my experience of God.

In the past year I have begun to notice that reading a book wasn't enough. I really need to study it to know what is there. This year my goals is to study a book at a time, and not worry about how long it takes me. I tend to rush, so what I really need this year is to slow down. I also want to try to read through the entire Bible at least once this year, but this is a separate activity from study. For the reading I'm going to use a New Century Version that has been sitting on my shelf for sometime and just read. For study I will use either NIV (New International Version, which is the one I made heavy notes on last year) or NASB (New American Standard, which is the one I have used and carried around with me for the past sixteen years).

That's it. Simple. The point is not to read a certain amount in a year. The point is not to become a renowned Biblical scholar. The point is to make the Bible an integral and integrated part of your daily life.

The best way I know to do that is to make Bible reading a priority, but also to Keep It Simple.

Has anyone ever put a patent on those words?