How NIV Journal the Word Bible Changed My Quiet Time

For years, my quiet time looked the same. Every morning at six, I sat in my recliner by the living room window, coffee in hand, my old Bible open on my lap. I read a chapter, underlined a verse or two, and closed the book. Most mornings, that was enough. But I kept noticing something. The verses that felt like they were written for whatever I was walking through that week needed more than a line under them. They needed room to breathe.

I am not a person who writes in books. Ask my husband Glenn, and he will tell you the same. I kept my paperbacks clean and my study Bibles neat, because it felt like respect. Writing in a Bible felt different, almost like I was leaving a piece of myself in the pages. So I did what I always do when I am unsure. I talked to the women in my Tuesday morning study. Several of them had been writing in their Bibles for years, most of them in the NIV Journal the Word Bible from Zondervan.

One of the women brought hers to church one morning, and I could not stop looking at it. She told me she did not write in a regular Bible. She wrote in the Journal the Word Bible, with wide lined margins made for exactly what I wanted to do. I had never heard of it. I had spent years assuming a Bible was a Bible, that the words inside were what mattered and the rest was just packaging. She let me hold hers, and I understood right away. The pages were thick enough that my pen would not bleed through. The margins were wide enough for a whole sentence, not just a word.

I ordered one for myself that week. And I will be honest, I was nervous about it. Choosing a Bible made for writing in felt like admitting I planned to be at this for a long time. But that is exactly what I was admitting. I had been reading the Bible for most of my life, and I wanted to read it differently. I wanted to talk back to it.

The pages were thick enough that my pen would not bleed through. The margins were wide enough for a whole sentence, not just a word.

The first morning I used it, I did not know what to write. I read the passage, underlined it, and stared at the margin. Then I wrote one honest sentence about what was weighing on me that week. It was not profound. But the next morning I wrote another sentence, and the next, and somewhere along the way my quiet time stopped being a thing I did and started being a conversation.

The layout took some getting used to. It is a double-column Bible, so the text reads the way most Bibles do, but the red letter for Jesus's words and the Comfort Print type make it easier on my eyes than my old Bible ever was. I have reached the age where I hold books a little farther away, and I have never once had to squint at this one. And because it is a Zondervan NIV, I know the translation I am reading is the one I have studied for years.

I use it in my Tuesday morning study now. The women tease me gently, because I bring it in my bag like a treasure, and I suppose I do. When someone asks a question about a passage, I can read them what I wrote in the margin weeks ago, from a morning when the same question was sitting on my heart. It has made me a better leader, not because I know more, but because I can show the group how I wrestled with the text myself.

A few practical things, because I know those matter. The pages hold up to a regular pen, which surprised me. I have used a fine-point ballpoint almost every day and I have never had ink show through to the other side. The book lies open flat on my lap, so I do not have to hold it down with one hand while I write with the other. Small things, but they are the difference between a Bible I reach for and a Bible I admire.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you have been thinking about writing in your Bible but you are not sure where to start, I would tell you this. You do not need to be a good writer. You do not need to have deep thoughts. You just need a pen and one honest sentence. And if you already own a Bible you love, do not feel like you have to replace it. But if the reason you have not started is that there is no room on the page, that is a problem the Journal the Word Bible from Zondervan solves. It is a substantial book, so it is not one you will toss in a small purse, and you should think it over before you order. But I have used mine every single morning since the day it arrived, and I do not see myself going back.