365 Days with God - Day 1

I'm giving myself a challenge. Read the Bible each day for a whole year, following the ESV Study Guide 1-year plan. Each day, I will post whatever God has revealed to me in His Word, and how it is changing me. A friend of mine once said that nothing has changed her life as much as reading the bible each day - and I'm excited for how this will change me. Join me on an adventure into the heart of God - and day by day, we can learn more about who He is and what that means to us!

- Andy Catts

Day 1, December 21, 2013
Readings: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Genesis 1, 1 Chronicles 1, Luke 1:1-25

Today, Ecclesiastes is what hit home. I had slept hardly at all the night before, due to a sinus infection. No medicine, because in Oregon, sudafed is a prescription drug thanks to meth cooks, and I did not have a prescription yet. So, I was miserable. And I despise being sick. I feel useless, helpless, and cranky - and assume that everyone else is viewing me as useless and burdensome. Not a great recipe for a happy morning.

However, this prompted me to begin this reading plan thing. Something I have hemmed and hawed over since I was challenged by Jeff, the pastor at my church. And so, on the couch at six-thirty in the morning on a Saturday, the first words I read are:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1 (ESV)

There's a time for me to be sick. While I hate every minute of it, there is a time for it. And this is the time. I probably wouldn't have started this whole thing if I hadn't been sick. At least not the way I did. I may not even have started writing about it, given that as I type this, I'm still sick (FYI, it's now Sunday morning, I didn't get the idea to write until now.)

So this time of being sick, has caused good things. Do I want to be sick? No. Am I grateful that God is using this to shape me? Grow me? Change me into the person He wants me to be? Absolutely. As I go forward through this next 365 days, I must remember that there is a time for every matter under heaven. And so I must look for the purposes of God in everything I experience, good, bad and ugly. And take joy in His teaching. Will you do the same?