Malachi 3:1-4:6, Revelations 22:1-21, Psalm 150:1-6, Proverbs 31:25-31
Today is the 31st day of December, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and as it has been 364 other times this year, it is great to be here with you around the Global Campfire and this will be the last time that we gather around this Global Campfire this year. Hopefully not our last time. Hopefully we gather around the Global Campfire again tomorrow and start a new journey but this is certainly the last time that we will gather around the Global Campfire this year. And I don’t know for some reason every December 31st I come to this microphone with a pit in my stomach. Like, it’s a joyous thing, we have accomplished, we are about to read the last, the last chapters and verses of the Bible. We will have read every single bit of it. That’s a joy but that we’re bringing things to a close for this year, that’s melancholy, but as it turns out there’s only one way to go right, and that is forward, the next step forward together, which is what we have been doing all year and it has brought us to this place. So, well done. And here we go our last reading from the Old Testament leads us back into the book of Malachi, today chapters 3 and 4.
Conclusion:
And this concludes the Proverbs. And friends, this concludes the Bible. Oh friends, well done, well done. We made it. We started our journey January 1st of this year and we have reached the last day of this year and every day in between we have taken the next step forward together that has led us through the entire Bible. Well done. And I’m just sitting here like I end up every time that we reach the end of the journey with this kind of empty feeling inside a little bit optimistic about tomorrow, but a little bit of a emptiness inside that we’re done. We accomplished what we set out to do, and this marks 16 complete years, seven days a week and we haven’t missed a single day since the Daily Audio Bible began. And if my calculator is right, that’s 5843 consecutive days that we’ve been at this. I think there’s been three leap years, I might have that wrong, it could be 5844 days, but I think we’ve only had three leap years, I don’t, maybe, I don’t know. A lot of days. A lot of life. A lot of change. A lot of good, a lot of hard. A lot can happen in a year but 16 years that’s life-changing for anyone. And so, I look back at myself 16 years ago, and it would’ve been 16 years ago today I guess, that would have been the very, very first recording of the Daily Audio Bible, a journey that I didn’t know if I could complete but thought that I probably could complete a year and read all the way through it in a year out loud, not really knowing what I was doing, but knowing plenty about audio engineering and planning about technology so, like I technically knew how to do it but didn’t know what I was doing. I’m not sure that I still do but I thought if I read it out loud and there’s a handful people that they go through it together, I’ll probably stick to it. I’ll get through that year and then that’ll be that I’ll get that time back in my life to fill in with other things and then I don’t know that I can listen myself read myself the Bible or whatever. I had no idea that it was like going to change everything. Everything about life as I knew it in that moment, now 16 full years later I look back and I’m like, I’ve done this long enough to grow up to be born and grow up and get a driver’s license. Children have been born in my home. Some of my children have grown and found spouses of their own and got married and had children of their own. Two of them arrived this year. This 16th year. Think about how things change in 16 years in your life and there are those of you who are here who weren’t born yet which, which is crazy to me. God has been faithful and all of the time I scratch my head and wonder how is it that I got behind this microphone. How did that happen but it did and I am grateful. After 16 years, like I don’t know what to do without the Bible as a part of my everyday life. I kinda started this thinking if I can really, really pay close attention and read the entire Bible one time through, I will have fulfilled my duty as a believer. That’s what we should do everybody should read their Bibles and yeah I can continue to study it but I’ll kind of have a lay of the land. I had no idea there isn’t a time that I read through the Bible right. I mean, some of you have been here for years. Every time we move through the Scriptures it’s speaking to us in a different sort of way, hitting us right where we live. So, that the 16 revolutions around the sun for change, for the next step forward. So, I sit here going, we’ve come a long, long way, but I also sit here, eager, knowing that we have a ways to go. There is so much more for us and for how to live that can be gleaned from the Scriptures as we continue to do what we do every day, one step in front of the other day-by-day, step-by-step, the next step forward together. So, thank you, thank you for taking the journey, it would’ve been a very, very lonely journey all alone, but being able to walk into the Global Campfire every day and find a place and move forward together, that makes all the difference. If this is your first time through the entire Bible, congratulations. When we read it all the way through, we realize there’s a lot more to this. There’s a whole lot more to this than I thought. And all of the people that we got to meet along the way, all of the different stories that we got to encounter, all the opportunities that we had to allow the Scriptures to become a mirror and that we’re looking at ourselves in the Scriptures. What a gift and what a, what a joy it is to share that gift together. So, this is it. I always want to procrastinate just gonna keep riffing and talking about whatever because I don’t want it to come to a close, because I’ll have to push stop and that will be it, there will be no more left in this year. So, for those of you that plan to show up tomorrow and board a brand-new voyage, I’m looking forward to that. I am, I am very, very much looking forward to that. For those of you who may be moving in another direction, now that you’ve gone all the way through the Bible, I hope you won’t forget your journey and I hope you will remember that there is a Global Campfire burning and it never goes out, we’re always here and that is the intention. At least that is my intention is to continue bringing the spoken word of God read fresh every day as long as I have breath. So don’t be a stranger, we’ve all been through a lot together over the last year and I think, I think that is about it, right. That’s, that’s it for today and that is it for this year.
Prayer:
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift his countenance upon you and give you peace. May the strength of God go with you. May the wisdom of God instruct you. May the hand of God protect you. May the word of God direct you. May you be sealed in Christ this day and forever more. Amen.
I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here next year.
Song