Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

If you and I are going to spend a year and hopefully the rest of our lives reading through the Bible, let's aim to do it well.

Today I'm going to talk about the three primary mistakes I made during my first trip through Scripture and tell you how to avoid them. Hopefully you'll be able to get the hang of this much quicker than I did and with fewer pitfalls. My first major mistake, and the one I think we're all naturally inclined to make, is that I was looking for myself in Scripture. Maybe it was the result of my church upbringing, but I'd come to view the

Bible as a big to-do list, even though I knew that wasn't the primary message. It's hard to

rewire the way you think about scripture if you've held a certain view for a long time. But one thing that

really helped me was asking myself a few questions each time I read. Number one, what did God say in

this passage? Number two, what did God do in this passage? Number two, what did God do in this

passage? Number three, why did God do or say what God said or did in this passage? Number four,

what did I learn about what God loves? Number five, what did I learn about what God hates? Number six,

what did I learn about who God is? If you can't find God in the passage,

look harder. Ask yourself, what's happening in these pages that could be attributed to God?

There's only one book of the Bible that doesn't mention the name of God, Esther, but even in

the absence of his name, the pages are saturated with his actions. So when you're in a section like that,

try asking yourself, what is he doing behind the scenes? What's he doing in the hearts of the people

we're reading about? Why did he put this section in his book? He's always at work, so look for it.

The questions we ask of the Bible impact the wisdom we glean from it. So let's ask the right questions.

As you ask yourself questions that point your eyes toward God, I believe your heart will be drawn in by the beauty of the divine all the more.

You'll be motivated by love more than by work.

You'll be moved by desire more than by duty.

I'm such a task-driven, list-making, box-checking perfectionist,

that it's hard not to treat this as a task or a goal. It's hard to remember that it's a

relationship and I'm here to learn about a person. It's hard to look for who he is and stop

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