Making a habit of desiring the sincere Milk

We are working on making new habits in our house. One area that we have been seriously lacking in is reading our Bibles daily. Now don't get me wrong, our days are filled with God and the Bible. We often have Godly music playing in the background and at anytime a passerby may hear us singing a hymn as we go about our daily chores. We read at least 1/2-1 chapter of the Bible together everyday in our school work. Every subject we study is focused on God and His plan(except maybe math). We memorize Bible verses in school and in church. We constantly are faced with decisions and we teach our children to search God's will and God's word in making them. We have standards that differ from the world and we often discuss them and the reasons we hold so strongly to them. We often search the Bible for clarification of a scripture during our talks. All of these things have become the norm in our household and I had gotten comfortable with that. I was overlooking the fact that our growth depends on really getting into the Word of God. Each of us individually! It can not just be part of our day or part of our family life. It has to be part of our own personal walk with the Lord. Each of us as individuals! I can't just take my children on a walk with Jesus-they have to walk with him. Not only should our family walk with the Lord-each person has to have their own personal walk. Thankfully we have an awesome preacher who loves us all very much. He is concerned about our individual growth in grace and knowledge. Each year he picks a theme for the year. This year just happens to be 1Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby. Following the leading of our preacher, we have adopted that verse as our own family theme. We are working on making it a habit for each person individually to spend time in the Word of God.

(not sure why this picture is sideways-it is not like that in my photos ???)

The first thing we needed was a reminder. It is easy to start a new habit but the busyness of our daily lives often cloud our minds and new habits are easily forgotten. I picked up 5 small poster boards with graph squares on them. I marked out squares for every day left in the year starting on April 1.

I also added our theme verse after each person's name. We have a family goal of 25,000 verses read by the end of the year. Each of us spend time alone reading God's word. Everyone is responsible for their own reading. It is done at different times depending on the person and we each record the number of verses we read on our chart. Everyone has started reading in different areas of the Bible. Monty decided to start in Genesis. He is really going for it and if he keeps going at the rate he did the first week, he very well could finish the entire Bible by the end of the year. Kenyon started in (and finished) the book of Proverbs. Keslee started in Matthew but has now jumped back to Genesis. Kalysa kinda jumps around and reads several verses from different books each day. I started in Genesis (mainly because I was preparing for a children's church lesson from there at the time) then decided to read Lamentations and am now reading through Acts.

The first week has been a success with almost 5000 verses read. Our goal may be way too low but we will just leave it at that for now. Even my 8 year olds are able to read, understand and learn from their daily reading. That kinda kills that excuse that so many grown ups use-"Oh the King James Bible is just so hard to understand so I read from a different perversionI mean version." We are all enjoying our personal time alone with the Lord and I know that growth is inevitable!