This is the second time I’ve read through the Bible in a year. And like the first, reading through the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) amazes me. At times it can be cumbersome. After all, some stories are recorded in all four eyewitness accounts, which means it’s feels kinda like watching a DVD that  keeps skipping and replaying the same scene over and over again. Although it may be the same scene, I try to remind myself that each was witnessed by different sets of eyes.

It makes me wonder what I would’ve written if I had been the one standing there when Jesus fed the thousands, or calmed the furious storm, or healed the servant, or gave the widow back her only son, or healed a blind man with a mud pie, or called a four-day-dead Lazarus out from the darkness of a tomb with a single command. What would I have written after my eyes took in the magic? And what would I have said to my friends and those who asked me what happened?

And then I realize: I have stood there.

I’ve witnessed life squalls calmed with a word. Children rescued from destructive behavior. Families restored when a member returns. The blind given new insight. And I’ve been the dead body held captive in a living tomb, far beyond rescue and too dead to revive. Until I heard the voice of One calling me out of my grave with the hope of new life.

And THAT is why I write.

• Day 302 (Monday): John 11
  
• Day 303: Luke 17:11 – 18:14
  
• Day 304: Mark 10, Matthew 19
  
• Day 305: Matthew 20-21
  
• Day 306: Luke 18:15 – 19:48
  
• Day 307: Mark 11, John 12
  
• Day 308: Mark 12, Matthew 22