It's a new day . . .

There is an old adage that goes something like this:

"The older you get, the less you know."

How can this possibly be? Every day I'm seeing thousands of new things, I'm inputting new memories into my brain, and I'm doing more than ever before. How can all this add up to less than the sum of its parts? Because seeing doesn't equal understanding, memories don't equal experience, and doing doesn't equal meaning.

None of these things matter if they are done for me.
They only matter if they are done to encourage, help, advise, lift up, or more simply put, love someone else.

They only matter if I align my words and actions not with what I want but with what God wants. You see, the older I get, the less I understand the complexities of this world. I truly want to understand this world or at least understand it enough to know how to live a life with meaning. After all, God has a plan for me. He knew me before I was born, and He made me for such a time as this. He knows me now even as I write this. And with that knowing comes responsibility. It's my responsibility to know Him fully, to seek Him out, to speak with Him, to read the words He has given me, to love others, and to live out His plan for me.

With all of this in mind, I am committing to read through the Bible in one year starting January 1, 2009. I'm doing this to have a more consistent, disciplined time reading God's Word, talking with Him, and hopefully, living a better, more loving life because of it all. This is an act of discipline that will be unrivaled by anything in my life so far. I'm horribly undisciplined, especially when it comes to doing the things I should do. I don't know if I can do this, but I'm committed to making it happen. I'm sure I can't do it on my own because if it was easy for me, I'd have done it already. But with God's help, I can do amazing things; He promises that over and over in the Bible. I'm excited to see that promise fulfilled.