Why I Stopped Reading My Bible

When you teach writing, you teach your students to start with a good hook.  Something interesting, surprising, or shocking to get your reader's attention.

Something like....

Why I Stopped Reading My Bible.

See?  It worked.  You're reading.

Anyway, that title wasn't JUST for shock value.  It's really true.  I'm going to attempt to the brief version of this story.  But we know how I am.  So no promises.

Ten or so month ago, I was at a low point spiritually.  I could probably say, my record low.  My walk with God had become mired in unmet expectations, which led to anger, then bitterness and resentment.  It was delightful.

Needless to say, my devotional life was not stellar.  poor.  non-existent.  I'd forced myself to go through the motions (read some scripture; pray; fall asleep; try to pray some more; give up and set alarm to sleep until time to leave for work) for a long time.  Eventually even the faking it stopped.  I just snoozed my alarm a few extra times.

My counselor asked me about it.  I told her God had stopped showing up, and so eventually, so did I.  She suggested that I try again.  I wasn't interested.  (in defense of my wonderful counselor, this version of our interaction leaves out lots of stuff)

I was in dialogue with a friend during this time.  She has a solid walk with God.  I respect her opinion in Jesus-stuff.  She suggested that I do something else.  Not read my Bible.  Seek God out in other ways.

I was a little scandalized.  Which is ironic, since I wasn't reading my Bible anyway.

My friend had some solid reasoning.  For the majority of Christian history, most Believers never saw God's written word.  Even today, heaps of Believers don't have access to scripture, or ability to read it.

Conclusion: reading the Bible can't be the only way God communicates with his people.

Let's all pause here to relive a couple of events from Sunday School Past:

Teacher: Children, how do we speak to God?
Kids; We pray to him!
Teacher:  Right!  And how does God speak to us?
Kids: We read the Bible!

Is this true?  Yes.

Is it incomplete?  Also yes.

How many ways are there for God to speak to us?

Well now, I don't know.  How many spiritual disciplines are there?  How many mountain ranges are there?  How many spring flowers?  Breath-taking sunrises?  Selfless acts of love?  Children laughing belly-laughs around the world in this very moment?

But back to my story (you know, the brief one?)

Around this same time, another friend invited me to work through a resource called Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun.  [author's note:  WONDERFUL resource.  I highly recommend it]  I started working on the disciple of silence.

If you know me, you're probably gasping.  Or laughing.  You're marveling at my courageous choice.  Silence isn't a natural gifting of mine.

It was hard.  IS hard.  Turns out I'm impressively bad at sitting silently, staying awake, and focusing on God, all at the same time.  It's harder than it sounds.  But I liked the simplicity and I kept trying.

It was through silence that God and I began communicating again after months of nothing.  Ironic, yes?

But here's the simple truth: I was finally listening.

Not waiting for an answer.

Open to anything He wanted to say.

Not reading familiar words without comprehension.  Not repeating a stale list of requests.

Just listening.

Just sitting in silence.  Trying and failing and trying again to clear my thoughts of anything but God.

For awhile nothing happened.  Except falling asleep.  But slowly I got better at staying awake and holding my focus.

And He showed up.  He came with a message.  The message isn't important for you.  It was for me.  What I want you to know is that there WAS a message.

I was...well...shocked.  Just like the prayer team doing battle for Peter's release from prison, I was shocked to receive what I had asked for.

The voice was not audible to my ear.  It was audible to my heart.  In a way that I've only heard God speak to me twice before in my 24 years of seeking to follow Christ.  Twice.

A few weeks later, another message.  Just as clear.

Suddenly, time with God wasn't such a chore.  And one day I thought, "I WANT to read my Bible."

I WANT to.  I WANT to sit and wait for God.  I WANT to spend time in His word.

Just last month, a third message.

Are you hearing me when I say to you that God has given me clear messages five times in the past 24 years, and three of those five times have happened since I started practicing the discipline of silence, in SPITE of the fact that I had been a really bad place with God?  Because this is huge.  HUGE!

Now, let's just say this.  I'm not promising you anything here.  Not that you need to buy that book and do what I did and then God will speak into your silence.  I am not a prophet, and God is not a genie, to perform for us if we do the right combination of things.  I'm just telling you what I'm learning.

I'm learning that time with God doesn't necessarily need to involve a Bible.  Or prayer.  Or a devotional book.  God uses those tools, but He's pretty creative and flexible.  They're not the only tools in his toolbox.

I'm learning that God may not be so hard to hear as I've always thought.  Maybe it's just that I haven't really been listening.  Not long enough.  Not deep enough.  Maybe, just maybe, He is more excited to speak than I am to hear.  If I can just sit in the silence long enough.