This morning I completed the bible for the fifth or sixth time since beginning the use of the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan. It’s an excellent plan and does a great job helping the reader to develop a discipline in studying the word. It also features a 25 day month which gives you several ‘free days’ each month so that you don’t fall behind.

I know a number of people who have found this plan helpful and therefore, as is my custom, here are some updated (from last year) resources in case you’d like to use this plan.

PDF

I’ve made a printable version of this plan available in PDF format. It can be double sided and folded so that it fits nicely in your bible.

iCal File

Two iCal files which can be imported into Mac’s calendar application. These will be good for 2010 and 2011. If someone feels like porting this to an Outlook compatible file, I’ll be glad to add it here as well.

Public Google Calendar

I’ve made a public Google Calendar with the daily readings through 2011. This can usually be imported to calendar applications, as well as mobile devices like the iPhone and Android phones.

Online

CRCurches.net has also made a web version of this calendar available on their site for browsing, if that’s your particular taste.

Thomas Watson, one of my favorite Puritans, writes this simple yet inspiring thought:

Read the scripture, not only as a history, but as a love-letter sent to you from God.

Some read the word solely as a means to understand and develop theology. Others, as a means to know what they should and shouldn’t do. Others, only to know what has happened in the past, according to Christian and Jewish tradition.

The intention of the Word isn’t less than these, but it is also a great deal more.

We should approach it, as Watson says, like a ‘love letter’. Not necessarily in the literal sense, but in spirit. What we read, was not only an intellectual work to be studied—a textbook. But it was intended for us so that we would be deeply affected and moved in the most sensitive regions of our soul. If we accept it as anything less than it really is, we miss more than we are gaining.

(Can’t see the video? Watch it on Youtube!)

Quoted in this video:

Ephesians 4:8-9:

Therefore it says,

    "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
   and he gave gifts to men."

(In saying, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?

And, Psalm 68:18:

You ascended on high,
    leading a host of captives in your train
   and receiving gifts among men,
even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there.

About two years ago this month, I penned a prayer in a journal I was keeping at the time. As I slowly skimmed over the pages a few days ago, I came across the prayer.

I think it’s strangely insightful. In a way that I certainly didn’t realize when I wrote it. The difference between spiritual numbness and spiritual peace are subtle. It is how unbelievers find contentment, even without God, and how believers stay their sanctification.

March 18th, 2008:

Jesus, help me not to confuse numbness with peace. For whatever reason, I feel nothing right now and I am tempted to call it peace. Whatever it is, will you spread you joy and goodness over it—for your glory?

Most of the time, peace comes from God after pain, while numbness comes from elsewhere before it. It’s like at the dentist when you go to have a cavity filled. They numb your whole mouth. If you were like me when I was younger, I would always irritate my mouth my biting the inside of my cheeks and tongue—it was a strange sensation. But inevitably, the numbness would wear off and my mouth would hurt really bad.

But the same analogy could be used for peace. A cavity irritates our mouth and causes pain, until we see a dentist who actually solves the problem leading to a legitimate ‘peace’. Not numbness, rather a real lack of pain.

As believers we must be aware when we’ve simply become numb. We cannot call it peace. It’s not peace. If we are numb, we are no doubt doing things that will hurt us later. Instead, we have to seek God to give us actual peace. And, it will likely not come before having to deal with some pain.

There has been a lot of posts about what will happen to print material over the next several years with the introduction of the iPad and other already existing devices like the Kindle and Nook. Although my mother clings dearly to them, I know for me, it’s probably been a good six or seven years since I last opened an actual dictionary to find a definition.

Encyclopedias? I don’t think I stayed in school long enough to really grow accustomed to using them. The internet seems to do the trick nicely.

Well, today, as I was browsing the net, I came across this image on thereifixedit.com. It seems to serve as what might be a pretty accurate omen to the future of most print material.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, conveniently modified into a broom to brush away debris on the floor.

Having little higher education, and not having read too much up until about four years ago, I personally have no attachment to the printed medium of literature. Well, other than the fact that I don’t really want to sit in front of my computer screen to read. But, with the advent of a versatile digital media device like the iPad, I can foresee a time when I don’t have a single book shelf in my home and all of my books are consolidated into one little digital media portal. Not unlike the way we’ve ditched shelves and shelves of DVD and CD cases.

I have friends who decry this attitude of mine. Clinging to the nostalgic feeling of several hundred pages bound together to tell a story or communicate an idea.

But a post of Craig Mod’s blog seems to sum things up pretty nicely. Well, for the immediate future, at least.

He argues that a huge amount of our familiarity with the written word will be challenged. Nothing is necessarily sacred. Just because we have lived for hundreds of years interacting with books on a page-by-page basis, doesn’t mean we will continue to. In fact, a digital medium will explode the formatting potential of our literature. Hopefully, in a good way.

As someone with no attachment to the analog methods we’ve used for centuries, I say bring it on!

It’s March. It should be cold. But the last few days have been so beautiful that my daily routine has moved to the back patio. There’s nothing quite like a good cup of hot tea, a fresh bowl of moassal, calm and brisk 60 degree weather, and God’s Word to help bring focus and reflection.

I couldn’t help but take the chance to invite you into my morning routine from the last few days… you know, before the rain starts and spoils it all!

In Tim Keller’s book Counterfeit God’s he has a chapter devoted to the allurement of power and how, as human beings, we often elevate power a success (both socially and professionally) to the level of a deity.

As Americans we often have the idea that we can do ‘whatever we set our mind to’, but Keller asserts that:

“We are not nearly as responsible for our success as our popular views of God and reality lead us to think.”

As Keller describes, we have a tendency to want to see our lives as a blank canvas for us to draw on as we go. As children and young adults, we see things in our family and parents that we vow never to emulate. But before long, any rational assessment of our lives will reveal just how much our family and life circumstances have shaped who we are, what we do and what we like to do.

With just a quick step back, we can see these are things we have had no control over whatsoever. We do no choose when we are born, where we are born and to whom we are born.

If these are three things shape a massive amount of our character and person, they are also sure weights in the balance of our success in all kinds of areas of life.

We are therefore profoundly naive to ever honestly believe we are really ‘in control of our destiny’ so to speak. If we believe in the God of the bible, we must be humble and confess that we are not in control of our lives in the way that we would like to be.

Keeping this in mind is a humbling thing and massive step toward trusting God and having confidence in his decision making.