I have finished the biggest project of probably my entire life. The General’s Reading Plan… in audiobible!
Let’s back up because you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Over a decade ago, I listened to an interview on Focus on the Family or Family Life Today or… some radio show like that. They interviewed an American military general who served mid-20th century. I do not remember his name, of course. Because I barely remember the interview. What I do remember is: He said the most important thing that made him a good leader was how frequently he read the Bible.
Specifically, he said he read the Old Testament once a year and the New Testament four times a year. Which is a whole lot more than most people, even those who do one year read-through challenges.
So, like the weirdo I am, I sat down with a spreadsheet and a Bible and figured out just how much reading had to be done every day. And because I’m never complacent with “good enough,” I included the standard “Psalms and Proverbs every month” reading plan. So in the end, it ends up being about 15 minutes/day of Psalms and Proverbs, 15 minutes/day of New Testament, and 15 minutes/day of the rest of the Old Testament. Which is easy enough to accomplish if you break it up throughout the day and… are intentional.
Being intentional is the key, of course. It’s so easy to let things like time with the Lord slip. Off and on over the years, I’ve read part/all of that day’s reading assignment. But rarely have I read all of it every day in a single month, nonetheless a whole year. Part of that has been the inconvenience of looking up what that day’s reading assignment is.
First I started with bookmarks, making one for every month of the year. That helped some. Until I lost some of the bookmarks. Then someone gave me a 365 day flip calendar “The Power of a Praying Wife.” That also helped, but the calendar often disappeared on me. And then I started using a Bible app on my phone, and almost never looked at the flip calendar.
And then someone told me about Bible.Is. It’s an app by Faith Comes By Hearing that has audiobible recordings. Thousands of them. They’ve got multiple versions in multiple languages with multiple narrators/performances. And the navigation is Old/New Testament->Book->Chapter, like many other Bible apps.
But there’s one thing that makes Bible.Is incredibly different from other Bible apps. It gives you the option of creating your own playlists. As in “When I click play, it plays all of these pre-selected chapters of the Bible.” And even better… It allows you to create your own Bible Reading PLAN. Which you can add playlists to! When I discovered this, I knew I wanted to add the General’s Reading Plan to Bible.Is. After all, I knew what needed to be listened to every day. Why not? And with playlists, it would be simple to add the Psalms and Proverbs and New Testament to each day.
But even with playlists, this took much longer than I intially anticipated. At least a year longer than I’d expected. But, it’s finally done. And that means… I can share it with you! Because Bible.Is almost makes it possible to share your reading plans with other people. Here it is:
https://bibleis.app.link/jvuZGwaLsJb
Of course, it’s set up to start on January 1st, but you can start it on any date you wish. You’ll have 365 days packed full of the word of God. And, with it being audio, rather than reading yourself, it might take less time than if you’d read it on your own (depending on your reading speed.)
If you prefer audiobooks to reading anyway, than this is a great option for you! And, like the advantages of audiobooks, you can listen just about anywhere, doing just about anything else. (Please don’t try to swim with your phone; it won’t go well.)
I know we’ll be playing the General’s Reading Plan daily in our house. I hope you make use of it as well.
