Finally making the commitment

One of the big struggles I have in my Christian walk is committing to read my Bible like I should. Sure, I spend time in my Bible weekly. I am doing studies in both my woman's group and my home group but that usually consists of me flipping through the reading and questions the night before or the day of. Where I am really lacking is in my daily reading. Spending that quiet time in the word truly taking it in. I have tried to commit to this several times in my life but like many other ventures I start with a lot of enthusiasm and quickly lose interest and motivation. So when our group leader in woman's bible study brought up the idea of all of us choosing reading plans for this new year, I wasn't in a hurry to get on board. Not because I don't know that I should read, but to be completely honest, I don't really want to. I WANT to want to, but I really don't have that desire. So I completely drug my feet when it came to even looking at reading plans let alone settling on one. Well, being the awesome and persistent leader she is, she again brought it up last week and had everyone share what they chose. I was honest in saying I hadn't chosen one yet and told her I would look into it.

It really forced me to think about why I was so reluctant to do something that I know is right and will be good for me. I thought about it the whole way home and talked about it with my husband later that night. What I realized is that because my desire is lacking, I knew that it would be a lot of work if I wanted to commit to this. And if I was being held accountable by the other women in my group, I would really feel obligated. I ultimately realized that I didn't want to fail like I had so many other times. In order to avoid failure, I have been avoiding making a new commitment to start reading again. I especially didn't want to fail when others would know about it. The thing is, as soon as I recognized this fear and spoke it aloud, I realized that it was silly. That I did not want to be held back by my own fear. Especially not from something that would help me grow spiritually. The more I thought about it the more it became apparent these were the devil's words being whispered in my ear. He was the one telling me I was going to fail. And I let him do it! This was the push I needed to get me going in the right direction. I began to allow new positive thoughts replace the negative ones and no longer was hearing the words failure or fear. I am happy to say that today I have started a 52 week Bible Reading Plan. I am making this commitment to myself and to God. I may not do it perfectly but I am going to do it.