Tara-Leigh Cobble

When are you going to read the Bible?

Set a time for it.

Put it in your calendar so you treat it with respect.

For most of my life, I read my Bible at the end of the day because I'm a night owl and it's when I feel most alert.

This was me too.

It was like, okay, I've read through Genesis eight times, but nothing beyond that.

I also would tell myself a convenient lie that it's better for me to read at night because unlike in the morning, I have nowhere to be in the middle of the night so I can stay up as long as I want reading the Bible.

Can you relate?

Are you on track to being a Genesis scholar right along with me?

Or maybe you've never even ventured into the Old Testament at all because you're only comfortable with Scripture after Jesus seems to show up on the scene.

That sounds nice, but that never happened.

I just rushed through it, half-focused, while my mind went back to whatever had happened that day.

Maybe you didn't know he's actually throughout the Old Testament as well, that it's actually all about him.

Then I'd go right back to checking social media and replying to emails.

Some people are so perplexed by Scripture that they just leave their Bible on the shelf and use a daily devotional instead.

And no matter how much I learned during my time in the Word that night, I never remembered it the next day.

They figure, obviously I'm not capable of hearing from God firsthand, so I'll just hear from him secondhand.

It would serve me for about 20 minutes until I fell asleep.

It wasn't impacting my thoughts or the way I lived.

Don't get me wrong, some devotionals are great.