How Do I Read the Bible? Remember My Neediness.

Sometimes I sit down to read the Bible, and it’s a glorious feast that I don’t ever want to leave. But other days, I feel like I’m just staring at black marks on a white page, feeling guilty for my lack of excitement about this book. So why does Bible reading sometimes feel dry, and what can I do when I just don’t enjoy it? Here are some ideas to work through.

• Am I just plain tired? Due to the normal course of life, sometimes we’re bone-weary and don’t FEEL excitement about sitting down to read and concentrate on the Bible. If this is you, take heart – just because we don’t FEEL close to God doesn’t necessarily mean we’re not. An exhausting season of life is our training ground to believe the Bible instead of our emotions. Keep reading and putting your trust in what God says in the Bible. Keep praying, even when you can’t FEEL your prayers going higher than the ceiling. Your emotions will most likely catch up and FEEL excitement about the Bible’s life-giving promises after your body catches up on some sleep and rest.
• Am I walking through a spiritual valley? Seasons in the valley are part and parcel of the Christian life. Sometimes we can identify specific causes of grief or depression that have led us here, and other times we may not know why we’re in this spiritually dry season. If you are walking through a dark, low valley, take heart – Jesus, the man of sorrows, has walked here before you, and he’s here with you now. Read the beloved Psalm 23, or turn to Psalms 42-43 and pray God’s words back to him. Continue to hope in God in this present season, even if hope feels more like an exercise in reasoning with your soul rather than a warm blanket of emotion. This is your chance to exercise true faith! — consider God’s Word, ask for faith to believe it, and put your hope in what is unseen. Pray, ask God to lift this heaviness and give you joy in him again, and wait, wait, wait on the Lord. “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (Psalm 27:14).
• Am I entertaining sin in my life? When I’m excusing sin in my life, God does not give me pleasure in his Word. (Isn’t that merciful of him! He won’t let me be happy in my sin – what a good Father he is.) Taste buds that are savoring worldliness and sinful pleasures won’t usually find much pleasure in the Bible. If reading the Bible feels boring or disinteresting to you, pray and ask God if sin or worldliness is the cause. And if it is, take heart! — Jesus loves you too much to let you enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. Confess it to him; draw near to God, and he will draw near to you (James 4:8).
• Is my spirit proud? For me, this is often why I find the Bible lifeless or boring. I forget how completely helpless I am and that “[wo]man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). Am I coming to the Bible with the understanding that I’m needy and that God is my strong help? Am I reading the Bible like a beggar looking for morsels? Am I reading the Bible like a Christian who holds in her trembling hands the very words of God? Am I ready to submit my circumstances and life to the ways of God I discover in his Word? So often, I don’t read the Bible with this kind of humility. And so, if the Bible feels stale and distant to you, ask God to help you believe how needy he says that you are. When we approach Bible reading like a little child peering with incomprehensible awe at the feast laid out before us, we’re moving a little closer to humility and the grace God has promised for those who humble themselves before God.

When we became Christians by trusting in Jesus, he made us new people with new hearts and new loves and new want-tos. We still struggle with this old flesh and its loves and want-tos, but the REAL YOU – the one made new in Jesus – loves the Bible. So ask God to continue working in you to help you love the Bible and love Jesus. When you find that Bible reading has grown stale, pray and wait on the Lord. Ask God to warm your heart to Jesus. 

When I’m tempted to just hop on my phone first thing in the morning or skip spending time in prayer I give myself a talk, something like: “Amanda, this is your lifeline. Nothing and nobody else can give you what you crave. Social media, friends, television – none of it will satisfy. Don’t trust your own strength; you’re not enough; you’re needy; you’re weak. Come, eat this feast, drink from the Fountain. Listen to God’s voice through the Bible. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

I find motivation to engage my mind with the text and linger there in prayer when I remember what is true – that if I don’t feed and fill up on Christ, I will be like a branch laying on the ground, frustrated and dismayed that I can’t put out fruit. And if I trust in my own strength to get me through this day or this week, I will produce fleshly, putrid, rotten fruit. If I don’t position myself under the Fountain to take in his living water, how can I ever be a channel of that living water to others in my life? So, come to Jesus and drink.