I know you’ve been waiting anxiously to hear this from me, and here it is:

I finished reading the One-Year Bible! (confetti, confetti, confetti)

It took me a few years to do it (Matt reminds me a few means three), but you know some of us read the Bible the way your preschooler hurries when you ask him to.

I turned the last page on Revelation and sighed like a true champion.

But now what? I thought, and I felt a little bit lost. For a few years I knew exactly what part of the Bible I would read in the morning, and now I needed a new plan.

Just so happens that my Spanish/English version of The Jesus Storybook Bible came in the mail that week. I ordered it to use in my Spanish class, so I started looking through it. I’ve been reading it every morning since then, and I love it.

If you’re having a hard time reading the Bible or the Bible seems dry, I suggest you order The Jesus Storybook Bible and read it as your morning Bible reading for a few weeks. It’s for little kids, so it won’t take long. Certainly we need to read the actual Bible in depth and on a regular basis, but I’m suggesting this to you as a little interim reading sprint.

Here’s why…

If you’re new to the Bible, it’s totally overwhelming. Where do you start? What do you do when you get to the confusing parts, which is often? The Jesus Storybook Bible is an accurate summary of the overall purpose of the Bible and will give you a framework in which all of the Bible pieces fit. It gives you the highlight reel.

Or if you’ve been studying the Bible in detail for a long time, sometimes it’s helpful to back up and look at the big picture. We need to remember where God is going with all of this.

Also, we need to read the Bible with a sense of wonder.

Jesus says:

Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.  (Mark 10:15  NIV)

We have to read the exciting stories the way a kid does and remember, Wow, God is awesome! When’s the last time you skipped all the academic “adult stuff” in the Bible and skipped straight to the parting of the red sea and the fall of Goliath?

Life is hard, and maybe all we need for encouragement is a jaw-dropping story of who God is.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we all read through this story Bible and then gave it away to a child? (And you can totally pretend like that was your intent the whole time, if you need an excuse for reading something that has pictures in it.) It would be a way for us to get a refreshing breeze of exciting reading with Jesus in the morning AND a way to share the good news with a young heart. (Great baby shower gift, by the way.)

Let’s never lose our hunger for the life-changing story God has written us into.