The Bible and Me in 2020

At the start of 2020, for roughly the fifth year in a row, I made it a goal to systematically read through the entire Bible during the year. I've consistently started strongly, but fizzled out by the summer. Well, for the first time ever, I completed the plan in 2020, reading the entire Old Testament once and Psalms and the New Testament twice. I finally even made it through the challenging major prophets, whose symbolism and application are difficult to decipher, and whose reading completion took over a month each. 

Here is the plan I followed from the Gospel Coalition. It lists the Bible chapters for the day (usually four), had a short commentary on one of the chapters, and periodically had links to helpful articles. 

Having met this goal for the first time, it feels appropriate to offer a few personal thoughts in reflection.

God/The Bible

• I did not learn a ton of new facts. I've studied the Bible for years on a personal level as well as an academic level as a significant part of obtaining a University degree. I've read Biblical books independently many times, although I am sure that there are several canonical books that I haven't read in their entirety until 2020. I have a decent grasp on most of what is in the Bible. I did hope to find some Earth-shattering gems, but do not recall doing so.
• I was constantly reminded that God is not a robot or a programmed, predictable being as we like to imagine. Sometimes God unleashes his righteous wrath and sometimes he displays unimaginable patience. Sometimes he does what we think He will, and sometimes He doesn't. This is not to say that God's character is not unchanging. To me, it is to say that His ways just really are above ours and that He sees things much differently than we do most of the time.
• There is a lot of unusual stuff that happens in the Bible. There are weird, uncomfortable relationships. People do a lot of dumb things. Grotesque, unexplainable things happen. There are definitely part of the Bible that would contain a mature audiences only rating on screen. Anyone who thinks the Bible is boring, unimaginative, or predictable has probably not actually read it on their own.
• Much of the Bible seems incoherent or contradictory at a cursory glance. However, if one can view the Bible as a collection of works that have been canonized as a unit to show stages of redemptive history with Jesus Christ at its center, a surprising level of coherence can be discovered.  
• Not every truth about reality or morality is black and white. There are gray areas. This is just an unavoidable truth. As much as we want everything  to be clean and cut and dry, that's just not what we find in the Bible. I believe that essential matters are clear in the Bible. But, there are many areas where Christians can disagree with Biblical support and still be unified in the faith.

Me

• The biggest thing that I learned about myself is that I am much more legalistic and sanctimonious than I care to admit. Many days, I simply read the assigned chapters and closed the book with no further thought. Many days, I listened to the chapters as I drove to work. I was rarely undistracted when reading or listening to the Bible. However, I kept pressing forward, often less because my heart's desire was for the Bible, but more because I wanted to finally make it through the Bible from beginning to end. I literally had this thought at times: "Now, when I face God, He won't be able to say to me that I did not read all of His Word." Does it get more sanctimonious than that? If there's anything I should have learned by making it through the Bible, it's that God will not be manipulated.
• This totally contradicts the last point, but I still hold them in tension. The more I read the Bible, the more my desire for it grew. This was not an everyday-truth, but was a feeling I experienced over the course of the year. This is a primary reason why I will be focusing on studying and interacting with the Bible much more this year, instead of just working to read through it. With this in mind, it is my hope to have deeper growth in my faith than I did in 2020.
• I really neglected other essential disciplines like praying and living out my faith in my community. Let's hope for better this year.
• I became more comfortable with the reality that there are many questions that we try to simplify answers for when the Bible is much more nuanced. Not all things that I've thought were essentials appear to still be essentials, and I say this as one who still maintains very orthodox beliefs. I'm ok with not having all the answers, or at least admitting that many things are not completely clear. I'm drawn to the wisdom of St. Augustine when he said "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity."