[Today’s run: 3.4 miles]

At our church they made a bit of an emphasis on Bible reading for this year. And they had obtained a number of readings schedules to pick from.

I think I’ve read every part of the Bible at one time or another. More than once I have started off in Genesis with the idea of going all of the way through, but not making it. Of course that is what happens with most New Year’s resolutions.

So this time I decided to try a different strategy. I picked up a schedule which has lines of numbered boxes, one box for each chapter. Each book has boxes of a different color.

I decided to start in that dry and dusty highlands of the minor prophets and see how it went. I’m reading a few chapters almost every day, not on a fixed calendar schedule. I just want to eventually check all of the boxes.

I’ve finished everything from Jeremiah through Malachi, picking my own order. They’re not in chronological order anyway. I knocked off the short ones first and then got to the longer ones. I started Isaiah this morning.

I really enjoyed Jonah, I already knew it was one of my favorites, and my second favorite so far is Jeremiah. Jeremiah tells them straight, and he wants them to believe, but they won’t. He even says: I’m going to tell you but you won’t believe me, and he tells them, and they don’t believe him (chapters 42-43). Jonah doesn’t want to tell them because he’s afraid they will believe and, don’t you know, everybody he talks to is miraculously converted, especially the ones he hates.

Being a prophet is a hard job.