Rules

Years ago, I was struggling. I was trying to read the bible every day, following one of the sets of notes produced by Scripture Union, but seemed always to be trailing behind. Faced with the prospect of devouring two or more readings in a day just to get back to where everyone else was (or so I assumed), I was tempted to give up entirely. The solution turned out to be a new discipline. I would read the reading for the day on the day it was intended for. No trying to work out where I'd got to. Just go straight to the page for to-day's date. The surprising thing was, from then on, I seldom missed a day's reading.

Since then, it has been a personal rule - if I fall behind, just pick up again, not where I left off, but where I should be. Possibly I found the One Year Bible difficult because I didn't want to apply my rule to this project. How could I - if I skipped passages, how could I say, at the end of the year, that I'd read all the way through the bible? And so I experienced again the misery of being always behind. I even tried to read ahead, but felt guilty, that I was doing something I wasn't allowed to do.

This morning, I broke my own rule. I read yesterday's reading in Encounter with God. And I read it in the bus, not at home. Why? Partly because I think that the current block of readings, from Nehemiah, make a good Lenten study. And partly because the notes have been written by someone I know. Perhaps 'know' is putting it a bit strongly. I knew him at University. He was, I think, in the year below me. And then I met him again, in Dundee. He was by then a minister in the Church of Scotland. I was deeply touched because he said to me that he was glad to see me. And now he is the minister of a certain church in Aberdeen, which I (and he) attended as a student. He has the unenviable task of succeeding the legendary Rev Willie Still. Dominic, if you're reading this blog, I salute you.

And thank you for suggesting that the book of Nehemiah has two themes - appropriately for this season - restoration and remembrance. We tend to think of Nehemiah in terms of repairing, or rebuilding, the walls of Jerusalem. I think that Dominic is indicating to us that we should see Nehemiah's task as, more fundamentally, restoring the people of God.

And, lesson number one, how does Nehemiah start? He prays.