Thanksgiving 2015 I bought a new Bible.
Over the last 10 years of purposefully following Jesus and endeavoring to live out this thing called discipleship I have read the entire Bible multiple times, always through reading plans that skipped around or for classes or using the shotgun approach (open the Bible and randomly start reading).
I have never sat down and read through the Bible cover to cover, book by book, page by page.
The new Bible I got was "The Message" translation. We can debate translations some other time. I wanted a version I hadn't read before and I didn't want to feel as though I were studying for a message in my quiet moments with The Lord.
Today I finished reading the Old Testament. I have done my best to read every day but some weeks I miss it. It has taken me 8 months.
I began to notice something a couple of months ago as I was reading. I was somewhere in the prophets and I found myself looking ahead to see how much further I had to go to get to the New Testament. I dismissed it once but then I began to notice that fairly regularly I was counting books, doing the math on the amount of pages left, calculating how many chapters a day it would take me.
The last month I have been so close to the Gospels I can smell them! An excitement has been building in my heart. I found myself longing for my quiet times early in the morning so I can get closer.
To be vulnerable the last 6 months have been extremely rough for me, I don't say that for sympathy, I say that for context. Life has been happening. I have been wrestling with my flesh, with pride, with disgust, with fear, with doubt, with hopelessness, with lack of vision, with weariness, with hope deferred.
I have been reading the journey of a people marked by brokenness and failure. I have seen a people miss it. Struggle and flounder in their sin. Run to God and run away from God. I have read His warnings of love to them. I have watched judgment unfold. I have seen their decision's consequences play out on the pages before me. I found myself feeling as though I have been reading my own journal for the last 8 months.
This morning it clicked. I began to see some parallels between my heart and what I have been reading in the Old Testament.
My soul longs for Jesus. An encounter with the Messiah. The Gospel. The God-man entering the story with redemption and hope.
No more striving. No more long distance relationship, but as Eugene Peterson so beautifully communicates, "God moving into the neighborhood..."
As I look around the landscape of our world, I find myself at the end of the Old Testament.
My soul longs for the arrival of the King. The only one who can right wrongs, fix injustice, embody mercy, and deliver hope. The answer today is Jesus. It is only Jesus. It has always been Jesus, and it will always be Jesus.
There is something beautiful about reading through the story as it is laid out. I am learning that my journey, my highs and lows should always make me long for the only answer that will satisfy the longings of my deepest soul, The Gospel, Jesus.
I pray your journey would be one of eager expectation and passion for the God-man Jesus. That his story would make you salty and bright.