Bible In A Year - T-Minus A Couple Of Days

I'm slightly concerned that I might have bitten off more than I can chew with this Bible In A Year thing (and any of my family members will tell you that I can cram a lot of chocolate biscuits in my mouth in one go so chewing isn't usually a problem for me).

Lucas Cranach, Adam and Eve, Courtauld.

I haven't even started the Bible In A Year project yet, and already I'm running into problems. To read through the entirety of scripture in a year works out at around three verses chapters a day, but just scanning through Day 1 it struck me that I may not be able to resolve the questions it raises in a single day (or even a lifetime). Admittedly, Day 1 is a pretty full on day, scripture wise . . .  Genesis 1-3 are the verses chapters that cover God creating the earth, which throws up some PRETTY MAJOR questions for someone like myself, who buys into evolution and old earth theory (incidentally, I've read several articles lately that criticise writers who capitalise words as being morons, to which I articulately say: SUCK IT! I love capitalising words - it releases pent up frustration).

The project hasn't even begun yet, and already I feel like I've encountered a disconnect between my head and my heart.

Yesterday was one of those beautiful autumn days when London is at its best (although you wouldn't know it by the pouring rain and grey skies outside today). The sun was shining pale watercolour gold but it was chilly enough to wrap up in a scarf, and after busing it to my old neighbourhood to get my hair cut, I was sat in my favourite coffee shop stirring sugar into a cappuccino. This cafe is stuffed full of old wooden furniture and copper pots and pans, none of the chairs match, plants hang drying from the ceiling, and I had a new book open that had arrived from Amazon that morning in nifty brown cardboard packaging. I also, over optimistically, had my current knitting project in my bag in case I had 'spare time'. I got over any self consciousness about whipping out wool and knitting needles in public ages ago, and now like to think that it gives me some eccentric hipster credentials, when really it probably just marks me out as a weirdo spinster in the making - but I am OK with that. It really couldn't have got much better.

I sat contentedly (if I could've purred, I would have) thinking about several different options of places to live next, and offered up a quick prayer to God that he would help me make the right choice. As I did so, I realised how wonderful it was to go through life with God there with me, to guide me, speak to me, to love me (although it's possible my feeling of well-being was due to the caffeine. I have, on occasion, been in church revelling in how joyous and full of the Holy Spirit I feel, only to reflect that it may actually be the double cappuccino I scarfed back before worship kicking in).

My point being - I feel like God is with me, my heart tells me it's so.
But verses chapters like Genesis jar me alarmingly, like wheels skidding when the brakes are put on too fast. I wonder if my heart can be trusted, when logic and reason make it seem as though parts of the Bible are just comforting stories.

My research so far has not been massively helpful - most of the articles on the Internet I've found are from alarmingly fundamentalist creationists, who work from the assumption that the Bible is always true, and fit science and world views accordingly. Not really useful to me right now . . . The upshot is that I've decided to give myself a little longer than a day to work on these particular verses - read a bit, pray a bit, see if any answers present themselves. I'm also going to read the Bible chronologically, not in the modern trendy fashion of 'a bit from the Old Testament, a bit from the New Testament, a proverb and a psalm'. I understand that this new approach makes it easier to digest, or, as a friend put it, "like hiding your vegetables under the meat", but personally I want to read it in the order that it happened.

So - here goes. I'll be back in a couple of days when my study guides comes through from Amazon (sadly less excited about these than my usual orders. My priorities suck). Yikes.