My husband and I like to read different things. He likes mostly self-help books, nutritional articles, how-to books, wilderness/survival/emergency preparedness books and anything with lots of details and information. I, on the other hand, like reading true crime stories, biographies, garden books with lots of colorful pictures, arts and crafts books, inspirational books, daily devotional books and everything in-between. We like sharing what we read with each other, sometimes we even read to each other! However, where we really differ is how we read. Galen likes to take his time and read slowly (the way he chews his food) and I have a tendency to speed read (the way I eat my food). But he retains more than I do. He remembers things he read weeks, months and even years ago.....while my retention is gone after I close the book, in many cases. I don't remember details and specifics. By the way, that is also true with movies. We have seen hundreds of movies over the years and I forget that I have even seen the movie, let alone what was in it!!
Unfortunately I have read the Bible the same way. Granted that some books in the Bible, such as long lists of people and their genealogies, names of Kings, or the various battles can be pretty boring. I have always skimmed thru them. However, when we speed read, we miss out on a lot of information. So, this year I decided to start from the beginning and read slowly and hi-light interesting facts. To my surprise, I found out that I have thoroughly enjoyed doing that, and have learned many new things along the way. The information was always there, but I did not see it. I am reading daily and I am one third of the way through, so I have a ways to go.
To know and understand God better we must first seek Him. I discovered that investing some extra time in reading His word is worth the effort. It is like any other relationship. When we spend more time with a person we get to know that person better. When we are in that other person's presence, if we don't rush and don't multitask, but rather give them our undivided attention we learn more about them.
When we slow down and carve out some time to pay attention to what we are reading, we will be pleasantly surprised to find many hidden treasures. So, I hope that if you are like me, who likes to rush thru everything, just to get to the next 'task' at hand, STOP and start slowing down. You will enjoy everything more and learn and retain more things as well.
Unfortunately I have read the Bible the same way. Granted that some books in the Bible, such as long lists of people and their genealogies, names of Kings, or the various battles can be pretty boring. I have always skimmed thru them. However, when we speed read, we miss out on a lot of information. So, this year I decided to start from the beginning and read slowly and hi-light interesting facts. To my surprise, I found out that I have thoroughly enjoyed doing that, and have learned many new things along the way. The information was always there, but I did not see it. I am reading daily and I am one third of the way through, so I have a ways to go.
To know and understand God better we must first seek Him. I discovered that investing some extra time in reading His word is worth the effort. It is like any other relationship. When we spend more time with a person we get to know that person better. When we are in that other person's presence, if we don't rush and don't multitask, but rather give them our undivided attention we learn more about them.
When we slow down and carve out some time to pay attention to what we are reading, we will be pleasantly surprised to find many hidden treasures. So, I hope that if you are like me, who likes to rush thru everything, just to get to the next 'task' at hand, STOP and start slowing down. You will enjoy everything more and learn and retain more things as well.
