Repetition Can Really Help Create Familiarity
Welcome to the next daily installment of this true story, which you can find posted here each afternoon until it comes to an end.
Chapter 101: Understanding the Bible
As I have mentioned, some years I have read the Bible once, twice, even three times in a year. Reading the Bible one time each year only takes about 15 minutes of time each day. The more you read through the Bible and apply the wisdom to your life, the closer you will grow to God. The more you subject yourself to the instruction there, and especially if you do that as part of a good, solid, biblical, local church, where you are seeking correction and understanding from those around you, seeking to mentor and to be mentored, the more you do those things, the more you will grow close to God. He gave this gift of the Bible to us as a guide for understanding Him and understanding life.
Not all periods in all believers had this gift available to them, but we have it now and what a special gift it is. The fact that it has not always been available to all believers does not make it any less valid.
The first few times through the Bible, front to back, it can take a lot of time to make sense. It can be really slow moving. But before long, it becomes impossible for it to not come together in a logical and consistent whole. Not every line will always make sense, but if you try your best to read each line in context of the entire Bible and to seek for large ideas that come together from it, you are left with some very powerful themes from a very loving God. The more you do that, the easier it becomes to make sense of smaller themes.
And maybe the most shocking thing to me about reading the Bible repeatedly — you get to know God’s “personality.” You get to know how God operates. It works its way into you, and it becomes clear how God might respond, or what wisdom you need in a given moment, or the tone with which you are to deal with an aspect of life. There are many things that the Bible has been compared to. I had never heard anyone compare it to this by the time of the train trip, but I think the thing the Bible was most to me during my frequent trips through the Bible, as I have already mentioned, was God’s diary. I was reading God’s diary. I was reading His diary with His full permission. I was reading His diary with His full permission and learning His deepest secrets and most special aspects. Yes, it felt like His diary, and how privileged I was that I got to read it. I get to read it. I don’t have to read it. I am not forced to read it. I get to read it. And it is a privilege. On top of that, each time that I read it, new insight becomes available to me. It is not like reading just any diary. It is a diary that you understand more and more each time you read it. Each time you read it, especially when you read it prayerfully, and with the intent of having more of God revealed to you, the more you see not just little details, but massive, earth-shaking aspects of God that open your eyes shockingly and dramatically in absolutely astounding ways. Hardly do I read a 15 minute long, daily portion of the Bible, without some astounding new detail of God and his “personality,” becoming clear to me. Forgive the seemingly mundane word, personality. “His nature” is probably a better term, but that term, then, leaves out the deep intimacy I find with God the more I seek Him through the Bible, through prayer, and through obediently serving Him.
Reading the whole thing is important to me, for in the strangest, most out of the way passages, passages seemingly having nothing to do with anything, the most special aspects of God are revealed. I used to think of it as a such a boring book. I guess that was because I never had anyone who successfully opened my eyes to how truly special it is — every verse. Every verse rewards studying. And every verse especially rewards prayer over that verse.
-Allan Stevo
This is a selection from my forthcoming book, “The Amtrak Vignettes.” A neat story began with the writing of “The Amtrak Vignettes” in October 2023. Every day until that story comes to an end, I intend to share a part of it here. It is a part of my faith journey as a Christian, a faith journey that has been deepened since the Ides of March 2020. Some of it gets pretty wild and nothing that a “reasonable” person would find himself in the midst of. Few will be scared off by it. Instead, many will grow deeper in their faith. I know that, because I know my readers well, and I know that few come here expecting me to give a milquetoast version of anything. Come here to be challenged. Stay here to have your life changed. That, I believe, is what will come of this work. You can support that work by signing up below.