We might share a similar goal for this new year: build a relationship with God.
Lately, I have been led to focus on putting God first in my life and when the new year came around I took that time to do some deeper reflections and I knew I wanted to do 2024 differently than I did 2023. I wanted to be intentional with myself and my goals, to reflect on God's word and decide what I wanted to pray about this year, and I decided to make a personal goal for myself to read the entire Bible this year.
In this blog post, I will be sharing a bit more on why I am taking these steps and sharing how I made my 2024 prayer board and Bible reading plan so you can make one too if you'd like!
Also....hi there friend. Let's get real for a second before we jump in.
I want to say that you can have a new start at any point in the year - it does not have to be the first of January! Sometimes we put a lot of pressure into the new year and now that we are 3 weeks into January, you may already be feeling discouraged about your goals - don't beat yourself up and don't give up. You can make your resolutions at any point of the year.
I also personally have always felt intimated about building my relationship with God and deepening my Christianity because I didn't know how to start and I'd look at other people who had scriptures memorized, and had a church, and knew the hymns and meanwhile I would be fumbling through my Bible trying to find where the chapter and verse was. The truth is, we should not be looking at others, we need to look within. I also always felt too busy to give my time to God - I would pray and do my devotionals, but I'd skip watching a sermon online to instead study for my pre-med courses. It's funny, because now I am in the arguably busiest and hardest part of medical school and starting these steps and going to Church.
I am just sharing this because when I write a post like this and talk about my walk with God, I don't want it to be intimidating or make anyone feel as though they need to do these things to get closer to God. I have been there - I am in fact STILL there. We are all on our own journey's - I am simply going to share some things that have helped me step closer to God in the chance that it may help you too.
With that said, I hope you'll join me for the rest of this blog post as we dive into creating a prayer board and Bible plan so we may be consistent, thankful, and thoughtful with our time with God, our blessings, and our worship.
Creating the Prayer Board
This year, I decided to make a prayer board to showcase my prayers for the year. A prayer board is taking the idea of a vision board, where you put your goals and visions into photo collage. A prayer board is made up of the images, words, and scriptures that visualize what you are praying for and it is a visual reminder to continue to pray for those things.
May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed - Psalms 20:4
I made a video explaining how I made my prayer board above! Here are the steps I did:
Thanking God for 2023 and journaling about the past year & reflecting on what this year meant to me, the blessings & the lessons
Reading the Bible, meditating on God’s word and praying
Journaling and writing down my prayers for 2024
Creating the board! I used Canva and images from Pinterest and my photos
I think the important part about this process is writing down your prayers. It is a deliberate way to decide what your prayers are and to pray them consistently, I simply open back up my journal and read the prayers I wrote.
This was a truly centering exercise and made me feel clear on my intentions for 2024. It has been a few weeks now since I made my board and it truly is a beautiful reminder for me of my blessings, my prayers, and scriptures that keep my faith and keep me going.
Bible Study Plan
In the past, I would do devotional books and Bible study plans that presented chapters and verses from the Bible for me to read, but I have never read my Bible on my own or in its eternity. I felt it was time for me to do this, to understand God and who He is, I need to read His word. I started reading daily back in December, but decided that I would use to New Year to come up with a plan to read my bible from start to finish.
Planning is truly key. To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail. I knew that if I am going to be successful in my goal of reading the Bible in a year, I would need a way to keep myself organized and accountable.
First, I needed to find a Bible reading plan. Thankfully, since it was the end of the year, a lot of Christian creators were posting their reading plans. They truly did the hard work of dividing up the chapters in a way that you can move through the Bible. I chose a plan that was 5/7 days of the week for the 52 weeks of the year, this way I had 2 days a week where if I didn't do the readings I wouldn't fall behind. Since I'm in my busy clinical year, I felt this would work best for me.
Here is the 2024 Bible study plan I am using by Seunbabara Babajide
Next, I knew I needed to have a checklist where I could check off each day, so I made this reading plan on Notion. Now I'll be honest, typing out the verses for all 52 weeks took me something like 2 hours - but honestly that time I took to set up my plan was like a test to myself that I was serious about this goal. As you see by the checks below, I've been able to keep up so far - even with the demands of clinical year - which I have been so happy with.
Finally, I made my Bible reading time a precious time for me and God. As I've said, this year is demanding and the most challenging year I've been through. Once the day starts, I am on the go, in the hospital, in clinic, studying, and trying to learn so much content in each day. So I truly look forward to the quiet time when I shut everything out and focus on my spiritual health. This is either first thing in the morning with my coffee or at night with a cup of tea.
Here is my template. You can make a copy of this template and use the Bible plan by Seunbabara on notion.
Growing with God
Lastly, I just want to share a couple tips that have helped me on my journey to grow with God. My first recommendation is this book The Purpose Driven Life.
Buying this book is probably one of the best things I did for myself last year, through 42 chapters for 42 days, it aims to answer the question we all ask ourselves "what is my purpose and why am I here." I just found this book really helped me by giving me a blueprint of finding my purpose through God. The first chapters break down God's purpose for you, the middle of the book explains how to build a relationship with God, why church matters, what real fellowship looks like, how to forgive, how to make peace, and the later of the book focuses on how to be more Christ-like and choose to fulfill God's purpose.
My next tip that has helped me is to make habits that help me to put God first. For me this has been daily Bible reading, keeping my Bible by my bed so I see it in the morning and am reminded to read my scriptures of the day. It is having the Bible app on my phone. And this app is great! I turn on the reminders and it sends a notification to my phone each morning to remind me to pray. I also love turning on widgets so on my laptop and phone I can easily read the verse of the day:
I also engage with and follow Christian content creators on Instagram, so whenever I open up my phone my discover page looks like this. If you follow me on IG, you know I like to share some of these verses or quotes daily.
I am a huge fan of curating your social media pages to serve you rather than distract you!
As I said in the start of this blog, I really do consider myself a baby Christian and while I was raised Christian I'm still at the start of my own deliberate journey with Christ. But as with any journey, we do not do it alone and sharing the process with others can be so impactful. I hope this was helpful and if you make a prayer board or Bible study plan, let me know how it is going for you!
And Happy New Year!
With love,
Kyeisha