Every now and then someone asks me about how to keep going reading the Bible and praying everyday. I usually respond with these bits of advice:
1. Two good half-an-hour blocks a week are better than five rushed minutes per day. It's grace, not guilt, so the point is to engage with God through His Word, not tick the boxes and follow the 'rules'.
2. 'Pray until you pray', is a Puritan maxim I love - from John Bunyan, author of 'The Pilgrim's Progress'. Just as in any conversation, it takes more than a few minutes to move from the perfunctories to the deep and meaningful in our conversing with the Lord.
3. Make a time and space, and commit to it. Bible reading and prayer is spiritual exercise, and it's a bit like physical exercise. If you're looking to get fit, you commit to a training regime and, come rain, hail or shine (ideally), you're out there with your runners on.
Plan, organise, commit to a time and space (not in front of the tv, perhaps in your favourite closet) and your spiritual exercise is more likely to happen. No one lost weight or got fit without a plan and purpose to get off the couch.
4. Bible reading plans, devotional books and various other resources can be helpful. I've used a range of them over the years, but find that I need to chop and change. Just like with my running routine, the same routes and programmes get boring after awhile, and need refreshing. Here are a few I've used:
Don Carson's For the Love of God (two volumes)
John Stott's Through The Bible in A Year
This Bible Reading Chart, which I think was put together by AFES - can anyone enlighten me? I love this, partly because it doesn't guilt you into feeling bad if you haven't followed some sort of daily plan.
The point is to cross out chapters as you read them, in any particular order, at any pace. Have a look at it, perhaps get your group of Christian friends to read along with you. The times I've used it I've progressed through multiple books at the same time, or had a weekend polishing off a few smaller books in one sitting. It's very cathartic, being able to visualise the sense of getting through the whole Bible.
The ESV Bible website has a pile of free resources: click here. I love the ESV Study Bible, and can recommend it wholeheartedly. If you have a Kindle or Kindle reader for your electronic device, the ESV Bible for Kindle is free here.
Any other tips from anyone? What's helped you to keep drinking deep from God's Word and praying regularly?
I have recently finished reading, "Too busy not too pray" by Bill Hybels which was a gift for my baptism from a friend.
ReplyDeleteMy husband has just started on it and commented today that it wasn't what he expected; rather than being a handbook on how to make more time to pray, it focused on changing your thinking so that time with God would become your top priority.
I found myself agreeing, saying we have all been given the same 24 hours by God, but we are all busy, too busy for many things, but we always have time for our first priority.
When I read the book I found myself clearing out a space in my house and my day to pray, and working on a schedule for what I was praying for, which I just never entertained doing before.
Here's a brand-new article from Sydney on developing such habits.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2011/10/creatures-of-habit/
He emphasises starting small rather than jumping straight in the deep end: "simple regularity is much better than sporadic brilliance" and "leave yourself wanting more." Different levels of "jumping in the deep end" might suit different people.
One key thing the author adds is, "Motivate yourself by preaching to yourself the gospel of grace." That is, remind yourself that approaching God is a gift in itself and a response to a gift already given.
Here are some tools I have found to compel me to read God's word regularly: Bible college essays and exams; memory verse flashcards that pile up if you don't get to them every day; leading a Bible study or beach mission.
Also, I found spending a year at Bible college learning and thinking and talking about the Bible with other folk fed my hunger as well as my understanding. "The more we do something, the more we want to do it."