30 Days in the Word Day 1

When I first made this blog I had to choose a URL. I wanted thirtydays.blogspot.com. But unfortunately it was taken. I had to think of something else that had thirty days in it..thirty day of...what? I didn't know what else I was going to write about on here besides my fast from facebook. I finally came to the conclusion of making it thirtydaysofyou. You being Jesus :) 30 Days of fasting from things that I have placed before Him in my life. So during those 30 days I would place Jesus in front of that thing and talk to Him, spend time with Him, and read His word instead of doing that thing that I was placing before Him in my life.

I thought the title was fitting, but I still was halfway upset that just plain thirty days was taken. A couple weeks ago I decided to look up the thirty days blog and find this scoundrel who stole my URL. His blog would probably be something completely lame right? Then I would fume and brag to myself about how much better my blog was and how I should deserve that URL that I wanted.

So I looked at the site. It was a blog made in 2003 by a guy named mike. This of course I fumed about. "He doesn't even write in it anymore! Why can't he delete it!" But then I saw the title of the blog and it caught my eye: Thirty Days in the Word. I began reading on day one. I noticed 2 things right away: #1: Mike was a Christian. #2: Mike was in college most likely. And later I noticed something else: Mike was really cool.

Mike explained the purpose of the blog in his first post. He said that God had been speaking to Him a lot lately about digging into His word. He gave this verse that he read in his bible study that he felt backed up what God was saying to him. Colossians 3:16: "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God."

Mike said: " I spend a lot of time reading, and I spend a lot of time reading good, Christian books. The Lord spoke to my heart and said, "Instead of spending all your time reading what others write about me, why not read what I have written about myself!""

He went on to say that he was committing to reading the Bible and only the Bible for thirty days (except for the minimum amount of reading for school and work). The rest of his blog posts were about what he was reading and learning. The best part was that he was so excited about it! I became excited and pumped up reading his blog.

About 3/4 of the way through his 30 days, he posted saying that he would not be posting on the blog anymore because the journey had become so intensely personal. He said that the Lord was showing Him and doing many things in his life that were blessings, just not to be shared on a public forum.

After I read all of his posts, I did not feel bad about my URL, nor was I angry about Mike "stealing" mine.

Reading his blog made me happy and glad that someone else had done that and had God work in their life in amazing ways. I was happy and excited about it, but that was pretty much it.

Around that time I had begun to read "Dug Down Deep" by Joshua Harris. It is a book about unearthing what you believe and why it matters. Josh talks about having a foundation on the Word in your life. I wrote about it here.

I mentioned this book a few times in my blogs. During that time I really began to think about what my foundation was or if I even had a foundation. I am supposed to hid the word of God in my heart right? When was the last time I memorized a Bible verse? I began to ask myself these questions and I soon realized that that was something I desperately needed to work on.

In April I made myself a spring/summer reading list that I had planned to finish before I began college. I wrote about it on my other blog. It is an intense list I have to admit. All of the books are Christain nonfiction. The ones I have read are hard and challenging books that bring up difficult stuff. It was a great idea for me to read them. But I am sorry, it's not going to happen, at least not this summer.

I watched the book of Eli a couple weeks ago not long after I read the thirty days blog. I wrote a blog post on it as well that had to do with this subject.

Out of all of this, I felt that God was telling me that I needed to have a foundation; that I needed to learn about Him and about His word and be firmly set in my faith and my beliefs. I am going off to college in a little over a month. I am going to be tested. Will I fall? Or will I stand on the foundation of my beliefs?

So here I am again. 30 days before me. I'm on day one. Thirty days in the word. I plan on reading Mark and Jeremiah, unless the Lord takes me somewhere else. I never know what to expect with Him ;)