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From the beginning of time God has wanted the heart of mankind. He wants us to call on Him and come to Him in prayer, to seek His will, and trust Him in all things. When we do, He is always available to us, longing for all to look to Him and live. His arms are always open to any who will turn to Him. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

I was never going to get married. No amount of wanting it on my end would make it happen, no amount of trying could undo this truth. I was simply not ever going to get married.

The following is a reading plan that I developed for some newer disciples / followers of Jesus to help them get a good picture of what is going on in Scripture from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. Our English Bibles do not follow a clear chronological order (particularly in the Old Testament), so many people who read the Bible straight through aren't able to, say, summarize the Biblical narrative as a whole. This is a bit of a problem as I believe that a developing healthy understanding of the Bible's story (and my/your place in it) is an essential component of discipleship.

It's high time you began a disciplined approach to reading Scripture, don't you think? Here is a review of the ESV Daily Reading Bible and three ideas for how you can move through the Scripture in a systematic and helpful way.

As Jesus sent His disciples out into a world that would be hostile to them, that would imprison them and beat them and kill them, what they needed to succeed wasn't a new car, or perfect teeth or a retirement plan. What they needed to live successfully (as God defines it) was The Comforter. 

It is easy for us to fall into a rut where we see God as 'Mr. Fix-It'; where we call on Him to remove problems from our lives so that we can accomplish the goals we had set for ourselves. Rather, we should call on God to remove problems from our lives so that we can accomplish the goals He has set for us.

Sometimes God chooses to let us walk through the storm so that we can learn that He will never leave us or let a situation be more than we can handle with His help. And sometimes He just plain steps in and fixes everything better than you could possibly have dreamed. Sometimes it happens in a moment, sometimes after years of patient waiting. We'll never see it if we don't let Him work, if we don't step back in faith and let God be God.

Believers must never allow the affairs of earth to distract us from our purpose here, which is attending to the interests and affairs of God as they pertain to this world.