Sun 9:30a Class; 10:30a Worship; 11:35a Communion
Bible Bites
Stop Dieting! Read your Bible in a Year!
Lots of disciples wish they read their Bible more. It is probably the number one New Year’s resolution for many of us. “I will read the Bible through this year!” we hopefully promise on January 1. But for many, it never happens. By the end of January we are a thousand chapters behind and the Bible reading schedule is forgotten, stuffed in the back of the Bible with last week’s church bulletin.
We can do better if we will change how we think about daily Bible reading. For many Bible reading is viewed as something they will do for a specific period of time, like one year. It is a “challenge” that is kept up with by meticulously checking off the daily readings. If a person misses readings feels he or she is “behind” and needs to “catch up” by reading more. All of this works together to make the resolution to “read the Bible through in a year” become very much a unique, onetime-only-event that will involve a special effort for the year. Yet this approach often fails because it treats Bible reading like we treat dieting.
If you are like me, you diet when your weight gets up a little and your clothes start being tight. I have never met a cookie I didn’t like. Ever. Once I accumulate enough cookies I need to diet. But I don’t ever intend to give up cookies, or eat healthy, or even fake interest in green vegetables. I lay off cookies just long enough to lose the weight I need and then... and then I make a date with a glass of milk and some Oreos. For me, healthy eating and dieting is an exception in my life. It requires an extra colossal effort that I don’t want to make. As soon as I can I get back to “normal living” (which means I eat cookies again). I’m not interested in changing my lifestyle and I am especially not interested in giving up cookies. So I’m a habitual yo-yo dieter.
Are you a yo-yo Bible reader on again, off again? Could it because we have never determined to make a lifestyle change? We have never committed to daily Bible reading. In our regular life Bible reading is not the norm, it’s not a habit, it’s not the rule. So then new year’s comes and we plan this big exception: “I’m going to read the Bible through in 2013.” Exceptions like that last about as long as most diets. There’s no commitment to fundamental change. Instead we are just trying to get to an end, to a goal, to complete a challenge so we can then go back to living as we want. The exception requires extra, exceptional effort and usually we can’t sustain extra, exceptional effort for long.
Yet Bible reading shouldn’t be like dieting. We don’t read our Bibles through in a year so we can check that off and then get back to “normal living.” We read our Bibles because we want to know God. If I have read my Bible through a million times I would still need to daily and regularly read God’s Word because I have a daily need to commune with God though the pages of Holy Scripture. I need to be reminded of who He is, and who I am (Jer 9:23-24; Ps 8). I need to be reminded of His standards of holiness (Ps 119:111 Peter 1:15-16). I need to see His power and trust Him more (Ps 77:14). Bible reading isn’t something I will “complete” or “check off” in 2013 or any other year. It is something that must become a permanent part of my life. It’s not a challenge, or a diet, or a one year go-forbroke effort. It is something that should be as much a part of my daily life as brushing my teeth.
Isn’t that how we treat prayer? Prayer is a part of normal life. We naturally bow our heads before a meal. We pray to start the day. We pray at the end of the day. We pray all the time. It is the norm in our lives. If we should miss some praying, perhaps because of sickness or fatigue, we don’t cram in extra praying to “make up.” We just accept that there was a glitch in our prayer life and get back to praying as soon as we can. We have made prayer a part of our regular pattern of life.
Could we do Bible reading that way? Instead of thinking of it as something to finish in 2013 why not make the decision that reading the Bible regularly will be a part of your life as much as prayer is? We want to talk to God (prayer) and we want to hear from God (Bible reading). That needs to be something that is constant and ongoing. It will never end. That means I can’t really get behind in my Bible reading because my goal isn’t to read a certain amount of chapters in a set amount of time. My goal is to know God through His Word. That insulates me from the “I’ve blown my diet so forget the whole thing” mentality that comes when I find myself way behind on my Bible reading schedule. If I missed a day (or days) then I need to see what happened, perhaps repent and re-arrange some priorities, and then get back to doing what I need to do every day: meet with the Lord in the Scriptures. I don’t have to read a bunch of extra chapters now to catch up, any more than I would feel like I must pray an extra half hour if I didn’t pray before bedtime yesterday. If I forgot to brush my teeth yesterday I wouldn’t brush them twice as long today to “make up” for it. I would just get them brushed today. In the same way, if I miss some Bible reading I should just get back to business as usual with God: reading His word, praying and talking to Him.
Treating Bible reading as a part of normal, every day life can be a real breakthrough. Don’t try to make an exceptional one-time effort to read the Bible in 2013. Just make it a part of life. Don’t see it as something you will finally get done and be done with, but as something you will do regularly from now on. That mind set change can help you reach your goal, instead of falling off a “diet plan” year after year. So let me pour myself a cup of coffee, grab a cookie ... and get to my daily Bible reading.
— In "Pressing On", January 2012
