Reflecting on daily Bible reflections

 Back in late March this year, as we all went into lockdown, as in-person church shut down, I went to sleep thinking maybe I could send something out to encourage people as we were going through all this. My thought was to go through a psalm a day, and, God-willing, by the end of 150 days everything would go back to normal. 

Unless they were very short psalms, I wrote a summary, and at the doxology at the end of each book of psalms I wrote a little reflection on that collection of psalms. I started summarising the NIV11, then the REB, and then I started just translating (the DRV!). I slowed down a bit for Psalm 119, translated the whole stanza, so spent the better part of a month there, but otherwise it took somewhere close to 180 days for the psalms. 

I think often when we read the psalms we don't quite know what to do with them - should we look for the hidden messiah between the lines, like the New Testament seems to teach us to do? I wanted instead to show a Christian reading, which took seriously the struggles of this world (read Psalm 88 for a laugh sometime!) but also knows what it is to rest in God. 

But of course, the pandemic continued. What to do next? People were still struggling, we still weren't meeting in person, and places like Victoria were getting worse, not better. So I moved onto Ecclesiastes, in part because it's comfortable (see my book on the sidebar!), but also because I wanted to give a Christian reflection on each short section of the book. 

With both Psalms and Ecclesiastes, I wanted to model for people how to read Scripture as Christians, not as moralists or legalists, as we often default to, especially with the Old Testament. 

When Ecclesiastes came to an end after a bit over a month, I decided I would do one more book: Genesis. This time something a bit different; I wanted people to read the Bible, not just my summaries. So I asked people to read a whole chapter, and then reflect with me on just one verse. I really enjoyed doing this, and hopefully people appreciated the fact that (if they kept up) they had read a whole book of the Bible - something which some of us take for granted, but many really struggle to do. 

I only got the word out once or twice, and a couple of people join the whatsapp group every now and then. There's a few more than seventy right now, and of those probably two thirds click on the devotion. I don't know how many actually read that, but a couple of people occasionally tell me thanks, or bring it up in discussion - "like you said the other day on Ecclesiastes" - so that's encouraging! I certainly haven't gone viral, but I have encouraged people from my church and a few beyond. 

The way I've done it is start writing at 7:30am and send it out at 8:00am. Sometimes I'll write it in advance, but normally that's my routine, so it's been good for me. It's been pretty labour intensive; here are the word counts from these 262 days: 

Psalms: 73640
Ecclesiastes: 17151
Genesis: 19255

Total words: 110046

So it's taken a bit out of me, but it's also fed me. It's forced me to say something, or, better put, to listen to what God is saying, even from chapters I'd normally skim through (table of nations anyone?). 

But now, I might take a break. I might get back to it, but maybe not. I do hope and pray it encourages people in their own reading and reflecting. I'm grateful that this project was forced upon me, for the discipline it's forced upon me, and for the way that God has used this to encourage others. But now? Time for some time off.