How to Become Excited About Reading Your Bible
I’ve got an affinity for simple elegance: natural light, mason jars, and Rae Dunn mugs. At the moment, I’m sipping a concoction of chai tea and coffee that’s mostly frothed milk. From my Rae Dunn mug with “GOOD MORNING” in all-cap lettering. The rim of the mug is not round. Intentionally imperfect. That’s why I like it.
Curve your hand around the mug, and beneath the warmth of the chai, you feel bulges and buckles in the ceramic. It’s a picture of how imperfect vessels (like you and me) can still be brimming full of God. Our flaws don’t change our capacity to be overwhelmed with the undeserved goodness of God.
Setting my mug down on my desk, I turn to my Bible, open to Psalm 119. It’s the longest Psalm in the Bible, and I’ve been slowly reading it for the past week.
If ever there is a chapter to help you become excited about reading your Bible, it’s this one. The psalmist’s unmistakable love for God’s Word is contagious. Over and again we find references to joy and soul-ache and insatiable desire for more of God.
Take verse 24, for instance, which in The Voice reads like this:
Yes, Your testimonies are my joy;
they are like the friends I seek for counsel.
Or verse 97:
Oh, how I love Your law!
I fix my mind on it all day long.
As I linger in these words, I feel wonder rising in my own heart. I too want to approach God’s Word with sincere excitement. Because I often don’t.
I’ve deemed my Bible as
- Confusing
- Boring
- Irrelevant
There are many days I’ve opened it out of duty more than delight. Days I closed it before it made my heart beat faster for the One infinitely worthy of my worship.
What’s The Secret?
In contrast, I find the psalmist often awake in the middle of the night because his heart is alive with longing for God. “O Eternal One,” he writes, “through the night, I stop to recall Your name” (v. 55). He rises pre-dawn and watches through the night because God is constantly on his mind (vs. 147-48). Wakes to thank God in the “middle of the night” (v. 62).
There’s a holy hurry in his pursuit. “I did not procrastinate and hurried to follow Your commands,” he writes (v. 60). The word “chase” appears in another verse: “I will chase after Your commandments because You will expand my understanding” (v. 32).
And I want to know his secret.
What compels the psalmist to pursue the teachings of God regardless of the hour? To chase after God’s will with urgency and love God Himself wholeheartedly?
It’s not perfection, because the unnamed author of this Psalm openly admits failure to fully follow God’s decrees. “Oh, that every part of my life would remain in line with what You require!” he exclaims (v. 5).
I take another sip from the not-round rim of my mug, grateful a deep love of God’s Word doesn’t hinge on my ability to live a holy, impeccable life. With all its dents and dimples, my Rae Dunn mug still holds 16 ounces. And similarly, my imperfection surrender and limited understanding and straying thoughts and selfish impulses don’t stop God from filling me with Himself through His Word.
The same is true of you.
You, with your hopeful questions and disdain of boredom, you with a waning fire in your heart–and a desire to rekindle it–you are precious to Jesus.
Infinitely precious.
Unspeakably wanted.
Enthusiastically welcomed.
The Author of Life–and author of every Spirit-breathed word in the Word–is captivated by you. And He longs to fill you fuller than my cup of chai–so full you spill over.
It’s by design, that you’d not only become excited about reading your Bible, but that you’d become captivated by Him, and your joy and adoration would be contagious.
But if not perfection, what is it that spurs a deep and trusting love of the Word of God?
Three Ways to Increase Your Interest in the Bible
Let’s turn back to the Psalm for clues.
1–Consistency
I first note the psalmist’s consistency. He continually tucked God’s Word into every unsure chamber of his heart. Instead of giving up when he failed, he asked God to help him align his life on the infallible truth of Scripture.
A fervent pursuit of God’s teachings isn’t a one-time decision, but an over-and-over decision made when we don’t feel like reading and when we don’t understand it yet, when we have barely any time and when we doubt it’s the realest help we actually need.
Over time, consistency grows trust. Awe. Hunger.
I’ve seen it work in my life. The more consistently I read my Bible, the more it means to me. Fewer are the days it feels like checking off a to-do and more are the days I read because I can’t stay away.
2–Expectation
Another theme emerging from Psalm 119 is expectation. Bold prayers–like “Verify Your word to Your servant, which will lead me to worship You” (v. 38)–are littered throughout the psalm. With expectancy comes a tender heart, more easily shaped by the gentle hands of God.
3–Gratitude
Finally, I find many mentions of gratitude–gratitude that says thank you to God when everyone else is asleep (v. 62), gratitude that raises hands in adoration (v. 48), gratitude that sounds like song (v. 54).
What I’m learning about gratitude is that it’s a before, not an after. When we voice our thanks before the fog clears, before the ground is stable, before the assurance that the worst is behind us, we learn to trust God in an altogether different way.
The psalmist praised in the middle of needing a rescue, and I wonder if we practiced this nevertheless gratitude if we too would find God’s words “sweet to [the] taste . . . sweeter than honey in [our] mouths” (v. 103).
Let’s pray.
God, You don’t shame us for finding the Bible boring sometimes. You don’t scold us when we don’t understand it fully or when we forget to open it up. But You do invite us to practice consistency, expectation, and gratitude so we fall in love with Your Word.
May we become excited about reading our Bibles.
May our hunger grow and our praise precede Your answers.
May we stay tender and in awe.
May our joy and adoration be contagious.
May we be so full of the goodness of Your Word that it spills out everywhere we go.
Just a friend over here in your corner,
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