how to read the Bible

How to Make Bible-Reading a Habit that Sticks

May 31, 2016 By Michelle

Bibles

Let me tell you straight up: I don’t read the Bible every day. My goal is to read a bit of the Bible every day, but I frequently fall short. This week, for instance, we’ve endured raucous thunderstorms at all hours of the night. You may not know this, but Nebraska thunderstorms don’t simply blow in and out in 20 minutes. Rather, they last hours…sometimes all night long. Which means I don’t sleep. Which means sometime around 3 or 4 a.m. I turn off my alarm. Which means I don’t get up much before my kids get up…which means I don’t get my morning Bible reading time in. It’s the truth: sometimes I choose sleep over Jesus.

When the Nebraska skies are calm, however, I do usually begin my day with at least a few minutes of Scripture reading. If I don’t sit down with my Bible first thing in the morning, it won’t happen at all. I know this because I’m a morning person, and that little bit of personal knowledge helps me maintain my spiritual habits.

The Four Tendencies* and Scripture Reading

I’m not going to write about how or why I read the Bible (I wrote about that here, if you’re interested). Instead, I want to talk about how understanding your Tendency (Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, or Rebel) and your distinctions (lark vs. owl; familiarity lover versus novelty lover; marathoner versus sprinter versus procrastinator) can help you stick to the spiritual habit of daily (or near-daily) Scripture reading.

Case in point: As I wrote about here, I’m an Upholder,which means I’m self-directed and usually work pretty diligently at achieving my goals on my own, once I identify them. Therefore, I read the Bible at my own pace, and it’s typically a solitary endeavor.

However, if you are an Obliger — which means you typically respond readily to outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations — the way I read the Bible won’t necessarily work well for you. Because Obligers are motivated by external accountability, a Bible study group that meets regularly might help you stay on task. Checking in with your group once a week to read and study Scripture together (or even enrolling in an online Bible study group like Women’s Bible Cafe or She Reads Truth) might offer you the accountability you need.

Likewise, a daily Bible reading plan might offer the Obliger the perfect mix of accountability and structure. Online resources like Bible Gateway offer a variety of plans. You simply subscribe to the plan that suits you best, and you’ll receive the appropriate verses in your email in-box each day.

My friend Deidra gets a daily Bible verse delivered to her phone, which she reads first thing in the morning (there are several free versions like this one for Android and this one for iphone available for download).

Or, if like me, you prefer to hold the Book in your hands, there are dozens of hardcover and paperback options like this one, in various translations available online and in bookstores.

Now, a word of advice for Questioners. If you’re a Questioner, you like to do your research and explore all your options before making a decision, BUT, you’re also prone to analysis paralysis. Knowing that, you might want to avoid the online Bible study plans (Too many options! Overwhelming!) and simply visit Barnes and Noble or your local independent bookstore, where you can page through a more limited selection of options. Or better yet, ask your best friend, your pastor or your women’s ministry leader for suggestions – that way you can “do your homework,” but avoid option overload.

Know Your Personality Distinctions to Read the Bible Better

As I mentioned earlier, I’m also a familiarity lover, which means once I find something that works for me, I rarely stray from it. I love the New Living Translation, and I prefer my small, paperback Bible, so I can snuggle into the couch and comfortably hold my coffee in one hand and the Bible in the other. I’ve been reading the Bible this way for about five or six years now.

You, however, might be a novelty lover, which means you’ll likely have to switch up your routine every now and then to stay committed. That might mean trying a new translation or interpretation, like The Message (which offers a contemporary paraphrase of Scripture); a Bible with accompanying devotions; or even something non-traditional, like The Book of Common Prayer or The Divine Hours (I read The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime all through Lent and found the change refreshing and inspiring).

Likewise, if you’re a Sprinter, a “Read the Bible in 90 Days” plan might appeal to you, whereas if you’re more of a Marathoner and prefer to divide up big projects into manageable bites, a “Read the Bible in 365 Days” plan is probably a better bet. And if you’re a Procrastinator, you might want to consider enrolling in an actual in-person Bible study group or an online group, so your peeps will help keep you on task.

Knowing whether you’re a lark or a night owl is important too. If I tried to read the Bible before bed, I’d be asleep in 14 seconds flat. But if you’re a night owl, you’re just hitting your stride when my head is hitting the pillow. Don’t force yourself to have “Morning Quiet Time” just because that’s the “Christiany” thing to do. Work with your personality, not against it.

Too often we are critical of ourselves for struggling to stick to a steady routine of Scripture reading, when in fact, it’s really just a matter of identifying our Tendency and personality distinctions and then finding the approach that fits best with who we are.

So tell me, do you have a favorite way to read the Bible?

Want to figure out which Tendency you are? Take this quiz.

For more information about Gretchen Rubin’s personality Distinctions, read this.

If you missed the first three posts in my Spiritual Habits series, you can catch up here:

How Our Habits Can Impact Our Spirituality {introduction}

The Spiritual Habit of Digging Dandelions

The Spiritual Habit of Staying in Place

*Based on Gretchen Rubin’s book Better Than Before: What I Learned about Making and Breaking Habits.

Defeating Sin with Snowball Fights

December 17, 2015 By Michelle

I’m delighted to welcome Monica Sharman to the blog today. Monica is the author of Behold the Beauty: An Invitation to Bible Reading, which I will tell you straight up has helped this lax Bible reader return to daily Scripture reading with a fresh heart {thank you, Monica!}. If you know anyone who has fallen away from daily Scripture reading, or perhaps has never cracked open a Bible to begin with, Behold the Beauty is a gracious, gentle invitation that will appeal to faithful readers and beginners alike. Read more about Monica’s book here, and be sure to stop by her website to say hello {and scroll down to the bottom of this post for a chance to win a copy of Behold the Beauty and one of Monica’s favorites, Knowing the God You Pray To, by Cynthia Hyle Bezek – email subscribers click here and scroll down to the bottom of the post to enter the drawing}. Welcome, Monica!

Text and Photos by Monica Sharman:

I live with four family members, and all of them are male.

I still don’t get why snowball fights are fun. Why do they love being pelted with icy globs? To me, it’s like being hunted.

But they have their great fun packing snowballs while I watch from inside and take pictures with the window between me and them.

I heat water in the kettle and take out the marshmallows so the hot cocoa will be ready when they come in, red-cheeked and happy.

That’s winter. In the summers I worked with my young sons on the simple skills of catching and throwing a baseball. I told them how to position the mitt. I reminded them not to shut their eyes when the ball comes at them. I showed them that if they throw the ball with the right hand, they should step with the left foot (not the right, as they were doing).

Sometimes the progress seemed slow. At the beginning of one summer, though, I went to the backyard for one of the first throwing and catching practices of the year. They were much better than I remembered; their skill level was even better than it was end of the previous summer!

Wondering what happened, I told my husband about it. “They got so much better at throwing all of a sudden! I haven’t even been working on it that long!”

Charles’s explanation came immediately. “It’s because of the snowball fights.”

Of course.

Maybe the way to get better at throwing is not so much to “work on” throwing skills. Maybe we should just have snowball fights, and the throwing will improve automatically, almost without thinking about it. Plus, it’s fun.

The Snowball Fight of Knowing God
If overcoming sin is the throw-and-catch practice, knowing God is the snowball fight. Maybe the way to get better at conquering sin is not so much to “work on” avoiding that sin, gritting my teeth and saying, “I won’t sin. I won’t sin. I won’t sin.”

Maybe if I get to know God better and better, increasing my intimacy with Him, then overcoming the sin will follow as a natural consequence, almost without thinking about it—like the snowball fights and learning to throw.

Could it be?

“And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him…

No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.” (1 John 2:3-4 and 3:6, emphasis added)

I think it’s worth a try.

Knowing God more intimately—this is why I read the Bible. Plus, it’s fun.

“Remember, the goal isn’t to scan a verse for the right answer, note it, and move on; it’s to get to know God.”
– Cynthia Hyle Bezek, Knowing the God You Pray To.

monica-nov2012-200wide Monica Sharman is a home educator, freelance editor, and author of the newly released Behold the Beauty: An Invitation to Bible Reading. She loves drumming, poetry, and karate. She and her husband, inventor of Crossbeams, live in Colorado with their three sons. Connect with Monica on Twitter or Facebook.

I’ll randomly draw two winners – one to receive a copy of Monica’s book Behold the Beauty, and the other to receive a copy of Cynthia Hyle Bezek’s Knowing the God You Pray To. {Email subscribers, click here and scroll down to the bottom of the post to enter the drawing}.

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Blogging Benedict: How to Stop Speed-Reading the Bible

March 8, 2013 By Michelle

I’m a speed reader. I skim and scan and tear through text, whether it’s a blog post, a magazine article or a novel. Blogging, tweeting, texting, Facebooking and Internet surfing have all exacerbated that tendency.

The problem, of course, is that my speed-reading has carried over to the Bible, too. I find myself skimming it, reading it just to get through it so I can move on to other items on my to-do list. Or, worse, reading whole paragraphs while simultaneously obsessing over the fact that the wet laundry sat in the washer all night. I’m not thinking about God. I’m thinking about mildewy underwear.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Benedict’s advice to “listen with the ear of your heart” – a kind of deep, attentive listening for God’s presence in your daily life. One way to do that, says Benedict, is through a close reading of Scripture, called lectio divina – literally translated from Latin as “divine reading.”

I admit that I have to work at this, and I don’t always do it very well. I have Bible Attention Deficit Disorder. That said, lectio divina is a valuable practice, and I’d like to think I’m getting better at it.

Here are some tips for practicing lectio divina (there are a few different methods – this is one I’ve tweaked a bit here and there so that it works for me):

1. Choose a very short passage (just a few verses) in the Bible, and read them through several times. If you are just beginning lectio, you might start with the Psalms, the Gospels or Paul’s letters – don’t head straight for Revelation or Leviticus or you’ll throw in the towel after 30 seconds flat.

2. Read the verses aloud– usually I whisper, because I’m the self-conscious type, even when I’m the only one home. While I’m reading, I try to listen closely for words or phrases that jump off the page or seem to speak to where I am or the challenges I am facing at the moment.

3. Write it – If something resonates, I jot those particular words or phrases in my journal, as well as my reaction to them. This is not eloquent prose. Usually I don’t even write in complete sentences. It’s simply a stream-of-consciousness reaction from the heart.

4. Mull over it – I try to take a word or phrase from Scripture and carry it with me throughout the day, repeating it to myself like a mantra while I’m driving the kids to school or emptying the dishwasher. I like the way even a single, small piece of Scripture can inform my daily life.

Don’t fret if you don’t have a dramatic epiphany during lectio divina. It’s not perfect or foolproof, and there will be days when you simply can’t move beyond your obsession over the wet laundry. I’ve had a couple lectio lightning bolt moments, but they are few and far between. Mostly this practice simply helps to remind me that God is indeed present in my everyday life.

Do you practice lectio divina? If so, what are some tips that work for you?

On Fridays during Lent I am re-visiting (read: rewriting) a series called Blogging Benedict that I wrote a couple of years ago. I am using the text St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living as my guide.

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how to read the Bible

The Four Tendencies* and Scripture Reading

Know Your Personality Distinctions to Read the Bible Better

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