I Waited Ten Years To Feel Ready

Every January I'd think about reading the Bible properly. Every January: not yet. Not this one.

I did that for more than ten years.

What I was actually waiting for was to feel ready. To be sure enough, settled enough, far enough along to get something out of it. That readiness never arrived, because it doesn't come first. There is nothing that makes you eligible.

So last January I made a different decision, and it wasn't a spiritual one. I'd read it as someone who was interested. Not as a believer. One passage a day, with a plan, because I'd never once managed it without one.

I'm still reading. Most mornings, before anyone wants anything from me.

I can't tell you it's been dramatic. Nobody appeared. Most days I read for a few minutes and understood about half of it. But a year of small, unremarkable mornings turned out to be more than eleven previous attempts at getting it right.

I don't have a tidy word for where that's left me, and I'm not going to reach for one. What I've done is open a room and give the possibilities a chance in it. That's honest, and it's further than I've been in a very long time.

The Epiphany Pages came out of that.

Every journal here is thirty days built around one season of life — exhaustion, grief, waiting, starting over, anxiety, caring for someone, beginning again. A short passage, an honest question, and a page that owes nobody anything.

They're written for people who want to find their way back to God and can't work out where to start. Some of them speak to God as though he's right there, because for many people reading them, he is. If you're not there yet, that's not a problem — but start with the free reading plan rather than a journal, and let the rest take the time it takes.

You don't have to have anything worked out. You just have to open it.

One page. One honest thought. One faithful day at a time.