My Challenge to Myself – Read The Bible in Lent

Lent during a pandemic just feels like a lot. As I’ve pondered the traditional practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, I’ve gone back and forth on how far I want to press in this year. Options felt limited. Practically, much of what I would want to give up has either already been taken away or is one of the few joys remaining. It seemed like an easy year to try and “skate by” if you will and I had unconsciously decided that was probably my plan for Lent.

But last week, I was listening to a podcast and the hosts brought up this dilemma. They talked a little bit about how it felt weird and like it might be too hard to add on normal fasting habits. But one of them stopped and mentioned that Lent wasn’t something we developed in modern, relatively easier times. The early Church, while undergoing immense persecution and turmoil, started the practice.

The Early Church didn’t see Lent as something to escape from or excuse themselves from, they saw it as something to press into.

So I started praying and pondering about how the unique slowness and homebound state of this Lent could give me an opportunity to offer up something new, something different to the Lord.

And I decided that answer was to press deeper into one of my goals for this year, to read through the whole Bible in a year, and to read the Bible in Lent.

The Bible in Lent Challenge:

So here’s what I’m challenging myself (and you) to this Lent, let’s spend 40 days getting a big picture look at the entirety of Scripture. Let’s read through the parts we’re tempted to skim past and be reminded of the heroes whose stories we haven’t really read since childhood.

It won’t be easy, it will take time and commitment. But rather than binging another Netflix show or testing a new baked good recipe, what if we spent the 40 days of Lent reading the Bible and letting our hearts marinate in the timeless truths.

Every day, for 40 days, we’ll read the Bible like we would a book.

I remember a mentor telling me in high school, “When you read Moby Dick, you don’t stop every few paragraphs to look up details about whaling, the climate, that time period, etc. you simply read it and take in the whole of the story, looking up details only as needed. There’s a benefit to reading the Bible the same way.”

Of course, she wasn’t telling me that there wasn’t a benefit for in-depth Bible study, she was advocating that we read it in a way we were more likely to miss – looking at the whole picture.

Let’s look at the whole picture.

You can access your 40-Day Bible in Lent Reading Plan in The Thin Place Resource Library for FREE when you sign-up for the access below!