I’m a couple of days late starting this again. I’ll catch up though, I promise. I don’t want to miss out on the very beginning. It’s the best place to start, after all.

In 2016, I based the majority of my study from the English Standard Version. Why ESV? I wanted to use a Bible that I hadn’t previously marked up with highlights, underlining, and notes. If you’re like me, your eyes are always drawn to the highlights and you tend to miss everything in between. I didn’t want to miss anything and I happened to have a beautiful ESV that was begging to be marked up. Now it is.

This year, I’ve pulled out a New Living Translation. Yes, I know it’s not even close to being the most accurate. It’s even borderline paraphrase, but it’s not marked up and it’s also a worship study and devotional Bible. The CVC worship team aims to write more music this year. What better way to get in a place to write the songs of Heaven than to study from a place of worship?

All that being said, let’s get into today’s reading.

This is the history of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless man living on earth at the time. He consistently followed God’s will and enjoyed a close relationship with him.

Genesis 6:9 (NLT)

Do you ever feel as though you’re not as close to God as you’d like to be? I do. Then, do you wonder why?

There are many reasons as to why we can’t seem to get close to God. Making Him a priority is certainly at the top of that list. Life can get in the way and spending time with someone you can’t see may begin to seem silly when there are so many others vying for your attention.

But what if the problem isn’t the time we spend with Him, but how we’re spend our time in general? Are we doing what we’re supposed to be doing? I’m not necessarily talking about work and family relationships. If you have a family, you should most certainly be making them a priority. What about everything else, though? Are you doing what God put you on earth to be doing? Are you in His will? Do you even know what His will for your life is?

Noah enjoyed a close relationship with God because he consistently followed God’s will.

How much closer would we be to God if we simply followed His will?

Daily Bible reading: Genesis 6-8, Matthew 3