Each time I read the bible, I have so many thoughts, feelings, emotions and questions running through my head. I feel like I have to get them out. This blog originally started as a
one year bible reading plan blog. I started the blog at the beginning of 2011 with the intentions of launching a scheduled blog per day starting 12:01 am, January 1st, 2012. Well, let's just say this is hard work. I spent a good part of the year with this goal completely forgotten about. Around August, I realized that my 2012 deadline was fast approaching, and I had only a handful of entries written. I started becoming much more diligent and writing a few blogs per week. Come the end of September, however, I realized I was too far behind for this to become successful. It takes me 1 - 1.5 hrs each reading session to both read and record my blog. I work full time, have a husband and three kids to care for, and a household to run. Dedicating that much is at many times implausible -- there are days where I can't make a 20 minute time slot for myself, much less the quiet time I really need to maintain a faithful every single day of the year blog post. Not to mention, sometimes I just want to sit back and read part of the bible without formulating my thoughts publicly. At this point, there is no time to do that.
Today's actual date is September 26th, 2011. I did my bible studies and blog entry today, and I really did enjoy it greatly. But all day long I felt the pressure of the impending deadline. How was I to meet it? I was beginning to think of pushing the project back another whole year. I was afraid if I did that, however, I would back off my commitment to myself and once again find myself in the third quarter of 2012, trying to figure out how I would manage to meet my 2013 deadlines. No, that wasn't an option.
This blog's original title was "Blogging Through The Bible In One Year." It was a long and cumbersome title to type into the browser, and that was the title only because I couldn't think of a better one that wasn't already taken. All day long, I pondered how I was going to do this. I got a new bible this week, a lovely NLT Study Bible. This bible has a 5 year reading plan so that one doesn't get overwhelmed. I thought, that's great, but that really is too long of a period for me. I need to get through my first reading of the bible quicker than that. On top of that, the plan in the bible was a straight through reading of the bible. I know from experience that does not work for me. I need to see a bit of all the bible has to offer, instead of feeling like I have to "get through" the Old Testament before I can even meet Jesus Christ.
I was in the kitchen when the solution hit me. My entire plan was wrong! I was focused on getting through the bible in a year while blogging about it, when in truth what I wanted was a daily blog about the bible. I already knew that I didn't want to stop blogging at a year when my work was done, but what was I going to do? Read the bible in another order, and force my way through it in another year? It was truly an unsustainable pace. I didn't have to rush through the bible in a year's time, I just wanted to reliably publish a blog entry every single day of the year. I wanted to create a place where people could go to read an excerpt daily, and ideally we (me & my readers) could fuel each other's thirst for knowledge and perspective. We could hold each other accountable, perhaps at some point in the later future form a community where multiple people could post their daily thoughts on whatever they had read for the day. And probably we wouldn't all be reading the same part of the bible each day, but that was okay. We would learn more from each other as we all explored different parts of the bible each day. All these thoughts unfolded to me in what seemed like an instant. A moment later, the website name came to my head: EverydayBibleBlog.com.
I rushed to my computer, and sure enough that domain was available. Not only was it available in .com, it was also available in all other extensions. I bought a package that included .com, .net, .org and .info. This occurred less than one hour ago. So now, I have a vague plan, four domain names, and a blog that now needs its structure reorganized. I then had another profound thought. Is this my calling? I have always wondered my calling would be, but I have never felt truly compelled to do anything. Except for this. Always have I felt compelled to do this. Even though I haven't even read the bible through once in my life, I still felt compelled to do this. Is this my calling? After all, God gave me a way with writing and I have always wanted to write, though not necessarily professionally. But I do like to write, it is my nature. I am an insanely shy person when it comes to my daily life, but in writing I have no fear. I can articulate precisely the message that I want to get across, and that fear I have in face-to-face interactions simply doesn't exist. When faced with proclaiming and exclaiming my faith in person, I clam up, I am afraid to talk. This fear does not just apply to matters of faith -- it is a shyness of my entire person. Therefore I have always felt like I don't measure up to God's standards, because how can I help others when I am so afraid of holding a basic conversation?
When I started this blog, I felt like I was coping out on address my biggest shortcoming by "hiding" out on the internet with my blog. But I realized today that it does NOT have to be that way! I am not coping out, in fact I will take this blog, and I will make it into so much more than I ever originally intended it to be. And through my blog, I will try to reach people and interact with people, and grow my faith through the interactions with others. I was only coping out in the sense that I thought too small about what I was doing. I thought I was one small person voicing small opinions and quiet reflections. This is not the case at all. I may build this, and perhaps I won't get a single participant, but at least I built it, and my faith will be stronger and I will be more knowledgable in my faith. I still will have won.
IS this my calling? Is this what I am supposed to do? I think it might be, and I have never been more excited, nor have I ever been more afraid.
UPDATE: January 1st, 2012
It is time to launch this blog! I am excited and nervous. I have a website in the works for this project, but for now we will have to communicate through comments on the blogger website. I thought, once again, that I would have to delay my goal because the website wasn't ready yet. But then it hit me -- there was no reason I couldn't launch this as a regular blog to begin with. I hope you enjoy this blog, and that it inspires you. I hope to receive feedback and discussions that will inspire myself. This right here is my new year's resolution, and I almost let it slide by for another year -- but not this time! The time is now, and here we go.
