Ok, so I am kind of sad right now.  To be quite honest, I have noticed that the 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge is coming under some criticism.  I had noticed that many people have not been able to keep up with it and only a few have actually been checking in.  I'm not writing this post to make everyone feel bad for not keeping up with it, but more because I believe that there is a big misunderstanding about the purpose of the challenge.

This week, Emma let me know that she would no longer be participating in the challenge.  She wrote a post explaining why she felt it was not what the Lord wanted her to be doing at this time, and I completely understand.  When the Lord is not leading you to do something...then you don't do it!  So Emma, I understand why you decided to stop with the challenge.  The only problem I have is with some of the comments left on that post.  I feel like some people are misunderstanding the whole purpose for this challenge. 

Let me just start off with the reasons I decided to do the challenge:

First of all, I don't feel like I have really challenged myself much lately, so I thought that reading the Bible in 90 days would be a great challenge to encourage me to consistantly be in the Word of God and walk in a closer relationship with Him.

Secondly, I have never read the Bible through and really thought reading it in 90 days would help me keep what I read daily fresh in my mind and get a good overall picture of Biblical events, how the Lord worked through each of these events and how they all relate to each other.  In the past, when I tried reading the Bible in one year, I had a hard time seeing this big picture.  First of all, I had not personally challenged myself in this area, and because I had not made a commitment to read daily it was easy to slack off.  Therefore, it was difficult to keep everything fresh in my mind.  The 90 Day Challenge has really helped me remain committed to my daily Bible reading and I've been able to see how everything I am reading comes together to accomplish God's perfect plan.

Please, don't get me wrong, I think it is VERY important to read the Bible through slowly and study it verse by verse and possibly spend days on just one chapter.  In fact, after this challenge I intend on reading the Bible through again, reading it slower and really digging deeper into it.  But I still believe there is a HUGE benefit and blessing in reading quickly and on a schedule.  By the way, MandyGrace had a good post  with great suggestions for personal Bible study.

Also, I had read on The Rebelution blog that Brett and Alex Harris had read the Bible through in 50 days.  They said it was an amazing experience.  I wanted to be able to have that amazing experience as well.  So far, I feel I have!

I'm afraid some people believe that those of us who are participating in this challenge are just doing it to be able to say "I've read the Bible in 90 days!  I've read the Bible in 90 days!  Yeah me!!!"  This is not the case.  I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure that all of us who are still participating would agree that this is not our motivation.  I'm not doing the challenge to check it off my to-do list or to just get it out of the way.  I truly want this to be a learning experience for me...an experience that will help me grow closer to the Lord, and...a challenge.

I hope you all will read this and reflect on the reason why you initially said you would participate in the challenge.  If the Lord led you to participate in the challenge, why did you stop?  Are you using the excuse that you don't want it to be a chore or some other excuse as a reason to quit?  If so, sometimes the Lord requires us to do things that are difficult to accomplish or cumbersome, but that is no reason to quit doing what He may have called us to do.  I understand that sometimes things happen in our lives that may cause us to get off track with our Bible reading (however we choose to read through the Bible) but we get through those times and get right back on track.

The bottom line is, what has the Lord led you to do?  Did He lead you to participate?  Or did He lead you not to participate?  Obey what the Lord has led you to do.


Sparkles