A new year, a new decade, a new challenge.

It's officially the new year and a new decade as well. 2010. Kinda has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? What does a girl do on the first day of a new decade? Well, here's what I did. While knitting yet ANOTHER cotton dishcloth, I watched a movie called "Julie and Julia", which I found thoroughly entertaining and will definitely be purchasing for my DVD library.



After watching the movie I played the "special ingredients" section that goes behind the scenes of the movie, which I also very much enjoyed. For those of you that haven't seen the movie, it's a true story about a young woman named Julie who moves to a new town with her husband and as a wife she doesn't feel like her life has much direction or purpose to it. She has a love of cooking and decides to spend one year cooking through Julia Child's recipe book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". The movie is kind of two movies in one as it flips back and forth from Julie's 2002 life in Queen's, New York to Julia Childs life in the 1960's in Paris, France. Julie not only learns to cook but in the year long process she falls in love with the spirit of the cookbook's author, Julia Child. One by one she masters each recipe, but not always without challenge and tears. Through discipline and determination she achieves her goal of getting through the cookbook in one year, all the while blogging her thoughts and experiences on her computer. At the end of this year long process she finds that she is a changed person. The purpose and direction she sought had beautifully unfolded in the pages of this cookbook.



After watching the movie, I had a strong desire in my heart to do the same. But not through the pages of Julia Child. You see, I have always longed to read the Holy Bible through in one year. In my lifetime, I have made many attempts to do so but always unsuccessfully. I like to imagine that if I put all the verses I have read since first becoming a Christian as a little girl that maybe I actually have read the Bible through....but that's not what I'm talking about here. I want to be able to say on December 31, 2010 that I have read, meditated and journaled (blogged, if you will) my way from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. If a cookbook and it's author can give a girl the direction and purpose she seeks....surely the living and active Word of God is able to do so much more! And, in a way, the Bible is kind of like a larger than life cookbook...chock full of fail-proof recipes for life. Actually, it's 66 recipe books in one, just waiting to be read, put into practice and digested for true nourishment. Food for the spirit, soul and body. I'm ready to take the challenge. I guess you could say like David did in Psalm 34:8....I'm ready to "taste and see that the Lord is good..."



*I am choosing to follow a chronological Bible reading plan that will not always follow the books of the Bible in order, but at it's completion will have taken me to every verse in the old and new testament. I am reading from the ESV version of the Bible.


January 1, 2010
Genesis, Chapters 1,2,3

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This may have been the first verse I ever memorized in the bible. It sets the stage. It puts first things first and it tells you who's at the top of the food chain. (seeing how this is a recipe book theme and all :o) In verse 2 it states that the earth was without form and void and that darkness was over the face of the deep. And that the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters....(sounds pretty "deep" to me) It seems to say that the earth, as it was originally created by God, did not look like it was soon to look starting in vs. 3. I find myself wondering if God actually did create the original earth without form and void or if I am just reading too much into it. And if He did, why? Was it when He decided He wanted to create mankind that He chooses to make the earth beautiful, with it's vast blue oceans and snow covered mountain tops? Don't know, just wonderin'.

In the next 32 verses we come to see that the voice of God is powerful indeed! He speaks and commands the Earth to be fashioned into a place that someone with a physical body can actually live in. There is so much to think about and write about in this first chapter of Genesis that it would seriously take me all year to just to get through chapter 1, so I'm just going to talk about some major thoughts I had and leave it at that for now. In vs. 3 where God said: Let there be light and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. My thoughts immediately went to the first chapter of John in the New Testament in vs. 4, In him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. My next major thoughts came from chapter 3 talking about the serpent speaking to the first woman, Eve. I imagine that up until now, everything was as perfect as perfect gets for the first inhabitants of the earth. The first thing the serpent (the devil who inhabited the serpent) did was to get Eve to question what God had said. Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?' to which Eve promptly told him "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.' " (Looks like she added something to the command, God never mentioned that they couldn't touch it)
But what intrigues me is the statement the serpent makes next: "You shall not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The devil's statement to Eve was a partial truth (he's a pro at mixing truth with error) The error in his statement was that they did indeed bring 2 kinds of death to them (physical death at a later time as God had created them to live on this earth forever with Him,with no sickness that could result in physical death to them. And spiritual death came immediately as they were now separated from the perfect communion with God they had always enjoyed) The truth in his statement is that they now did become like God in knowing good and evil vs. 22 Then the Lord God said, "Behold the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil." God then drove the man and his wife out of the garden. Some people believe that God drove them out because he was punishing them for their disobedience. I do not believe that was the motivation behind this decision at all, #1 because that is inconsistent with the true nature and heart of our Father God, and #2 because of vs. 22. which goes on to say God drove them out of the garden lest the man eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. Think about it...man was now in a corrupted fallen state! God loved His human creation so much that He drove them out so they would not be able to eat of the tree of life and live forever in this fallen, nonredeemable state. Before they ever sinned God had a plan of redemption in place! (Rev. 13:8 says that Jesus was the Lamb of God who was slain from before the foundations of the earth!) Their sin (disobedience to God's Word) did not take God by surprise. In His Omniscience, God already knew what He would do to save His creation from destruction. I think this is the first record in the Word of God that shows how much God truly loves mankind. (Besides the fact that He gave them each other, provided for all their needs and gave them such an awesome and perfect place to live!)

Well, this first day was pretty long winded....but you know how first days can be.
I'm really looking forward to tomorrow!

Lessons learned:
1. When you have a choice between choosing to listen to what God says or what the devil says, choose what God says. You won't be sorry.
2. Even when I screw everything up, God has a plan to redeem my bad choices. His love for me is greater than any mistake I could ever make.