Most days I go for an early morning walk, and for the first part of it I listen to the Bible on my phone. I’m working through a One Year Bible Reading Plan which, frankly, is the Moriarty to my Holmes. The Borg to my Picard. The Malfoy to my Harry. (Er, I think I just implied that the Bible is an evil villian… oops.) Don’t get me wrong; reading the Bible regularly is a great idea. If you can do it. Me, I generally get to about January 6 before I start skipping days here and there, and then feel guilty about skipping days so I try desperately to catch up, only to fall behind again because I’ve been so busy catching up that I’ve forgotten to keep going with the current days. Every year this happens, and every year I think, “No, I’m going to do it this time! Daily Bible reading, deep and meaningful engagement with the Word, hours of prayer. EASY.”
Yeah. Easy. Except that when I sit down in the silence of my house to read the Bible and pray, I instantly pile expectations on it. “Okay, I’m reading the Bible. I have to REALLY get something out of it. I have to have a deeply significant, life-changing encounter with God. I need to be so moved by what I read that I can’t stop pondering the passage for the rest of the day. And prayer… spending time with God in prayer is going to be so wonderful that I’ll come away from it a different person. A better person. I’ll be so assured of God’s grace and wonder and love for me that it will change my whole day.”
There have been times like that, but I have to say that they are not the norm – and when I expect them to be the norm, I’m going to be disappointed, and feel like I have failed. I don’t even know why I have these expectations. When I spend time with friends or family I don’t expect it to be a wonderful, Hallmark encounter every time. Sometimes it’s wonderful. Sometimes it’s quietly comfortable. Sometimes we have a communication breakdown that ruins the day, but we work it out later on. That’s what happens in relationships.
God wants a relationship with me. He doesn’t want an anxious, expectation-laden, awkward and ultimately disappointing “quiet time” experience for 20 minutes a day. He wants me to spend time with him in a way that is comfortable and real and in line with the way I process life. Sometimes that means sitting down with the Bible, reading and praying. Sometimes it means heading off to a secluded park or beach and sitting with God in silence. Sometimes it means stomping around my house in a rage, yelling at God because there’s been a communication breakdown and I don’t understand what he’s doing. Sometimes it means listening to the Bible being read to me, and missing a few bits here and there because I’m thinking about other things. Sometimes it means writing in a prayer journal that I haven’t opened in months.
I’m enjoying listening to the Bible and working my way through a reading plan. But if I fall behind, or I don’t finish, that’s okay. It just means that God and I have been spending time together in different ways. As long as we’re in a relationship, all time spent together is worthwhile.
This life is... 