Everyday???

How in the world am I going to fit in reading scripture every day?  That's like...EVERY day.

I'm already inundated with life:  school, job, family, exercise, Facebook, Twitter, The Voice...where will Bible reading fit?

How do I know what to read and what it means?

The Bible is just so...long.

I grew up in church; sang in the kids' choir; performed in the Christmas plays; went through, and later helped run VBS; It was a huge part of my life.  But, I always felt like I was missing out on something.  Why were there people who were so much more "spiritual" than me?  These people could reference verses off the top of my head and used words like "I felt God speaking to me" and "God led me to __."  Whoa.

Then I read the book Radical and was awakened to (you guessed it) a radical idea.  How does a person grow closer to God?  The same way a person grows closer to a friend:  spend focused, special time with them.  Shocking, I know.  I realized that if I really want my life to center around Christ, to be lived for him every breath of every day, then I needed to get to know him, on an extremely personal level.  That meant sacrifice.

No, not sheep sacrifice.  Thank goodness.  I don't think my vegetarian-self could handle that.  Ew.

My sacrifice?  My time.  One of the most precious things I have.  I knew that after being challenged by the radical message of Radical that I needed to take a serious step in my faith and make a serious commitment.  If I wanted to get close to the Lord, to grow in the ways of Christ, to focus all I am on Him, then I needed to spend time with him, listening to his voice through scripture.

So, I started waking up 20 minutes earlier every day.  Was it hard?  Yes.  Did I always want to?  No.  Did I require a cup of coffee?  Absolutely.  But what I soon discovered is that this girl looked forward to those 20 minutes early in the morning.  I often couldn't wait to go to sleep so that I could wake up and hear more from God through the stories of the Bible.

And since then, the Lord has poured his love, truth, and wisdom into my life into a way that I wouldn't trade those morning minutes for anything.