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(The following are reflections from the writer’s personal journey through The Bible Recap by Tara-Leigh Cobble – a Bible reading plan to read the Bible chronologically in one year. To learn more about The Bible Recap, visit thebiblerecap.com.)

Day 1: Read Genesis Chapters 1-3

My Takeaways:

• Jesus, along with God and the Holy Spirit, were all three present before God created the world! This blew my mind when I first learned it! They each played a part in creation.
• Eve was a gift to Adam. We are gifts, ladies!
• Sin is and will always be a problem. Sin lies. Sin and its consequences are never worth the cost. But, God has a plan to help us in our sin – always.
• Satan has a knack to make us feel shame about ourselves when we mess up, shame that makes us want to hide from God. Adam and Eve had no shame until they sinned. Thank God for Jesus, who takes away our sin. There’s no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
• Before God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden, He clothed them. He made skins for them. How?! He killed an innocent animal to use its skin to cover Adam and Eve. Just like Jesus, the blemish-free Lamb of God, was killed to cover our sins. Right from the very beginning, God reveals His plan for salvation! God is so merciful to us amid our sins.

Day 2: Read Genesis Chapters 4-7

My Takeaways:

• I don’t like the story of Cain and Abel because the good guy gets killed. But it does show me a few things. First, sin is always crouching at the door, ready to tempt us to step outside of God’s plan. Satan knew Cain’s jealousy and baited him. It worked. Second, God asks us questions He already knows the answer to. Why? To get us to reflect on our behavior. To get us to see the problem before it escalates. To do a heart check. Third, God is merciful to Cain. Just when I don’t want the “bad guy” to have mercy, God flips that scenario on me – do I deserve His mercy? This always gets me.
• People lived longer in these days. While this doesn’t make sense to us, there are a few theories. It hadn’t rained yet in those days. A canopy of water was in the atmosphere and blocked out much of the sun’s harmful rays creating ideal living conditions. Another theory is that the genetic code was pretty close to perfect at that time – not much sickness and diseases. And, ultimately, God deemed they would live longer lives at this time.
• Enoch never died! Like Elijah, he never experienced a physical death. In Jude and Hebrews, we find out he was the first preacher and a man of great faith. I think this is pretty cool! Evidently, God did too.
• Hearing about the Nephilim is disturbing but explains why everyone was so prone to evil!
• My favorite takeaway: Noah’s obedience. He doesn’t question. He doesn’t object. He doesn’t delay. He obeys, building a boat when it had never rained. And, he was probably known as the “crazy” guy who spent over a hundred years building a boat. That, my friends, is tough obedience! And, this shows us God’s great esteem for obedience.

Day 3: Read Genesis Chapters 8-11

My Takeaways:

• My thoughts during today’s reading centered on the patience of Noah. Noah’s ark comes to rest on Mt. Ararat after the water surged for 150 days. But, it would be several more months (I counted 8 but not for sure if our months lined up with this time period) before the earth was dry. Noah would do little tests with a raven and a dove. But, he waited until God told him to come out of that ark. It reminded me that the good things in life often take time. We may not see the whole process, but we have to trust God and His timing. It shows me that our God is faithful, even when we can’t see Him working. I feel like this is a theme in my life. Anyone else?
• After this huge act of obedience in following God, the only other thing we learned about Noah is that he got drunk and passed out. Naked. Then, he died 350 years after the flood. I wonder…was there nothing else to record about him during that time? Passing out naked just didn’t seem like a great ending to this man who leaves us such a tremendous legacy.
• I want to finish strong. I want to walk with God, like Noah (Genesis 6:9). I want to persevere over hardship, experience the faithfulness of God, and sing God’s praises. I want to live out my faith until the end. And maybe Noah did, and we don’t hear about it, but we are all called to have a legacy of faith to pass on to the next generation. Noah gives us obedience, patience, and faith. What would be your spiritual legacy? Yes, we will mess up. Stumble. Fall short. But, don’t give up friends. Your God is faithful. Finish strong.

Day 4: Read Job Chapters 1-5

My Takeaways:

• Just when things are moving and grooving in Genesis, we are in Job! This plan has us reading the Bible in chronological order, so now we move on to a man who went through it all – losing children, losing his livelihood, and faltering tremendously with his faith.
• And here’s this challenging question of Job’s: “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” This comes from a man who not only lost much, but now has painful boils all over his body and a wife who struggles supporting him.
• The story of Job is uncomfortable for me…but it is also a reminder that God can bring good from any situation for His kids. God can use the toughest of circumstances for His glory.
• There was another man, named Jesus, that suffered as well. And, thank God, much good came from Jesus’ persecution and death.
• For anyone who has experiences loss or questioned God, I pray our time in Job will be cathartic and balm to your heart.

Day 5: Read Job Chapters 6-9

My Takeaways:

• These are serious readings! Very heavy.
• Our Job is struggling, as we all would be! For all of us who have had a tremendous life situation, we get it. We get what he said in verse 6:11: “What strength do I have, that I should continue to hope?”
• Oh friends, hope is stronger than a wish or desire – hope is a confidence, a trust in a future event, a belief that something will happen. Job reveals in verse 6:13, he has given up hope for success. And he talks about it – he says he will complain about it and not restrain his mouth (7:11). And you know what? Many times, I don’t always restrain my mouth when times are bad. I can get real crabby when something bad happens. I probably complain more than I pray about it.
• Recently, I had a big surgery. I had been praying for it for months. I had people praying for me. And I had 3 big complications. Life after the surgery was hard. Honestly, I lost hope. I was in pain and just kinda existed, trying to make it through the day. And I was sad and confused as to why God would allow this to happen. But, each day of my recovery, I had God “winks”. People texted, dropped off meals, cleaned my house. He kept nudging me. He didn’t give up on me.
• Life can be messy and hard, and it can be a struggle to see God in it all. But, stories like this remind us that God is a God of mercy and grace. That Job’s story isn’t over yet. God is in the details. For those of us in those hard seasons, we need this promise, this hope.

Day 6: Read Job Chapters 10-13

My Takeaways:

• Job has some strong questions for God! Any thoughts on his “If I could talk to God, I would say…”?
• Any thoughts on his friend, Zophar, and his reasons why all of this tragedy has happened to Job?
• My favorite line from today comes from Job: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him…”. There are different translations for this, but I love this one the best because it shows hope. Even if the hope is to defend himself to God. It shows that, amid all this loss, Job hasn’t given up on God. He is still struggling but hasn’t abandoned his faith. He knows too much about God’s character to turn away from Him.
• That is why we are doing this study! To learn more about God’s character so that when tough times come (and they will come) we can question God, we can struggle with Him, but we won’t abandon Him. We know that He is full of grace and mercy. We know that He is faithful to His kids. We know that we can hope in Him.

Day 7: Read Job Chapters 14-16

My Takeaways:

• If I could sum up Job 14-16, it would go like this:

Job: God has crushed my hope.

Eliphaz: See, that is the problem! That is your sin talking! Be wise, man.

Job (to all his friends): You all are the worst comforters ever.

• If you are struggling through Job, look for that one pearl of wisdom in the reading! For me, it was this: compassion and patience go further than words.

• Hang in there friends! God isn’t done with Job yet! The ending is worth the struggle!

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