Psalms 119:103 says "How sweet your words taste to me; they are sweeter than honey.” Do we really believe that? If so, why is it that daily Scripture reading is such a difficult habit to build?
As 2016 was fast approaching, a phrase that Pastor Belinda posted a couple of years ago on her Facebook popped up in my mind: 禱告有重點，讀經有計劃. And I thought maybe I should set up a more systematic Scripture reading plan in the New Year. On January 1, I saw an Instagram picture from one of my favorite authors, Mark Batterson.
There was a Bible and a notebook laid side-by-side. The Bible is marked up with numerous underlines. And Pastor Mark put this caption next to his picture: New Bible + New Journal + New Year = New Normal. It touched me. And so, I picked up the phone and called to check if Lifeway Bookstore (http://www.lifeway.com/) was open on New Year’s Day, and they did! So my husband and I took our two kids and headed to the store to pick up a New Bible for the New Year.
We ended up spending hours in the bookstore. As we left, my kids and I were both very happy with what we had in hand. We settled with the New Living Translation Bible (NLT) version thinking that the version would be easier to read it through chapter by chapter. My kids' Bible is a “Three Story Bible,” a NLT kids’ version with some devotions inserted. It is one with three stories intertwined: God’s story, our story and our friends’ stories. I like what it is written on one of the front pages: “This is what Three Story is all about. It’s about you drawing closer to God and inviting your friends into God’s inner circle. It’s about living your life with intentionality—taking every opportunity to grow closer with both God and the people around you.”
As for me, I have chosen a NLT Illustrate Study Bible. I was so pleased and impressed with the layout, the information and the format. On the back cover, it says, “The Word of God is Alive and Powerful . . . The Illustrated Study Bible is a stunning visual study experience that will open your eyes to the truth of God’s Word. Hundreds of windows to the Bible world and over 1000 images bring the story of Scripture to life in a new and compelling way."
And so, armed with these tools, we ushered in the New Year with the determination of reading through whole Bible once this year. We did a little math and figured out that if we read 4 chapters each day, we can go through the whole Bible in a year with 60+ free days left for catch up. It seems doable. Each night after dinner, we gathered around our dinner table and used an audio Bible App called “The SuperBook” (http://us-en.superbook.cbn.com/app) to follow along. The chapters in Genesis are especially long. As we wrapped up the Scripture reading one night, I looked up the clock, and boy, 45 minutes had passed! We were all amazed, and my boy exclaimed, “It didn’t feel like 45 minutes!” There was another time that we had a hiccup in the Bible App and the audio part wouldn’t come out. And my girl volunteered to read. She read through 3 chapters of Genesis nonstop.
These incidents pushed me to think, indeed, God’s Words are sweeter than honey. We don’t need any add-ons to attract the kids' attention. We just need to present God’s Words as they are and bring our kids to God. God’s Words alone can capture their attention. In fact, my kids didn’t just listen and follow along, they were actively engaged with highlighters in their hands, underlying the parts that jumped out. At the end of each reading, we would take turn to share what hit us the most and one of us would wrap up in prayers based on those sharing.
Families nowadays have such a busy routines and we spend so much time on the road taking our kids from event to event for the extracurricular activities. And if we think about it, we may have spent far more time on things that are peripheral and temporal; but have neglected what is truly imperative and long lasting. As I tucked my son in bed one night, I asked him, “Why is it that you can’t even focus much when we had a 45-minute long puppet show at church during Christmas, and yet, you were able to stay tune when we read the Scripture for 45 minutes using just the audio Bible?” And he said, “Because we read it as a family.” I think his response is a representation of an outcry of the youngsters in this era. They may not verbalize it, but it does reflect a certain truth of their inner landscape: they long for the time together as a family. There is a strong sense of security that comes through when we present ourselves as a family in front of the Lord, inviting His presence to be in our midst.
Life is a journey with twists and turns and the best gift we can ever give to our kids is a light in their heart to guide them through: a true north that acts as a compass to direct them when confusion clouds their judgment and when they are being pulled to different directions by their peers. May we grasp this season when they are still receptive to God’s Word to instill the truth in their heart, TOGETHER, AS A FAMILY!