The Year in Review.

Well, I am done. Thousands of pages, chapters, verses. Sixty-six books. Two testaments. One Bible. And what an amazing year it's been. This year has been full of transitions, great joys, and difficult trials. It included engagment, a wedding, the first six months of marriage, quitting a job, moving to a new state, starting graduate school, finding a new church, and making new friends. Thankfully, God and His promises sustained me through all of these many changes and uncertainties.

I can honestly say that never before have my day-to-day life and the Word of God been so beautifully intertwined. I have always known the Bible fairly well, but this year the Bible truly changed me. It influenced my attitudes, my decisions, my actions. It made me swallow my pride and say "I'm sorry," it made me pick up a rag and bottle of sanitizer and clean dirty public bathrooms for the glory of God, it made me take a deep breath of patience when Micah was frustrating me, it made me reach out and say "hi" to a neighbor when I just wanted to be alone. I was not perfect this year by any means. I was far from perfect, and I had God's word to remind me of my sin, my depravity, my awful flesh. But I also had God's word to convict me and to remind me of the power I have in Christ to say "no" to sin. I have the Holy Spirit, who empowers me to live by God's word. And God's Word teaches me to repent, to serve, to be patient and self-controlled, and to love my neighbor. I love God more and I love His Word more after spending this year studying scripture. I long to be changed by His Word more and more as I continue my life on this earth.

So what's next? The strangest thing about reading through the Bible in a year is that you don't really know what to do when you get done. I look forward to slowing down the pace of my reading. I am excited to spend time meditating on one or two chapters of the Bible a day, instead of studying three or more chapters at a time. I have also been convicted that I need to improve other areas of spiritual discipline in my life - namely prayer, which I have really been neglecting since the move this summer. I am excited to delve into deeper, longer times of prayer, to listen to some sermons, to read some theological books, to think of more ways I can be Christ to my new community here in Arizona. But I am also excited to read more of the Bible... I delight in the fact that God's character is so full of goodness, holiness, and power that there will always be more for me to learn from reading His Word.