Grow Issue (January/February 2020)

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 OHBELOVEDONE.COM NOT JUST A RESOLUTION
Is Bible reading part of your
new year resolution in 2020?
If you're anything like me,
at least once in your life —if not
every year—you have included
a spiritual goal in your new
year's resolutions list. And these
resolutions usually follow along
the lines of doing a better job
reading our Bibles, don’t they?
(Which, of course, is a good
thing.)
Reading our Bibles is awfully
important and it's great that we
want to improve. But how many
times do our resolutions last
for only—well—as long as the
year feels new? I don't want to
presume to know what exactly
your Bible reading goal is. Maybe
it's to read the whole Bible this
year. Maybe it's to read for 15
minutes every day. Maybe it's to
make it through one book that
you haven't been able to finish
yet. Whatever it is, here are a few
ideas to help you get through the
year and slay this resolution.
PRIORITIZE.
Once upon a time, Amanda Brown, our founder
and editor-in-chief, wrote a guest post about staying
close to God during college and she said something
really wise that I still remember. She said that college can
be a really selfish time because it's all about you, and that's
why it's so important to stay close to God.
And I realized that this is true not only for college. Most of
the time we are actually focusing on OURSELVES and stuff
that's important to US. Therefore prioritizing that which is
MOST IMPORTANT is a really good idea.
START SMALL.
I think that many times we might aim
too high. Often I hear people give advice like,
"spend time with God every day, even just five
to ten minutes," and I think, yeah, right. Rather
pathetic that we can only give that much time.
So if you can do your devotions and Bible reading
FIRST in the day, it will not only help you in
slaying your resolution, but also in your
daily life.
So then I set a very high and idealistic goal for myself
and end up doing nothing because my goal is exactly
that—too idealistic and too high. I've learned that it's
okay to start at five minutes. It does not mean that you
will forever be doing only five minutes. But because
habits are important to form, it's ok to start with five
minutes and grow from there. So even if you have
a fairly big goal that you wish to attain, it’s
okay to take it slow and steady and easy in
January, and build upwards later.
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