Girl, Read Your Bible
“But a woman who fears the LORD will be praised.”
Proverbs 31:30b
It is only fair that I follow up my last blog post, that I address the second half of Proverbs 31:30.
The sum of a woman’s beauty, as previously noted, is their physical appearance and their noble character. While physical beauty is not outlined in detail in the Scriptures, good character has been described thoroughly throughout its pages. In this passage, it is clear that a beautiful woman is a woman who fears, or rather respects and listens to, the LORD.
One of the first ways we can begin to reflect respect for God is where we invest our time. We cannot know how God wants us to live, we cannot plug into the Spirit, if we are not listening to the voice of God.
It is imperative that you create time with God. That you are investing in His Word every day of the week.
I would love to be really nice and kind about this and say “well if you are reading a nice commentary on the bible at least twice a week, you are investing your time well with the LORD.” But that would be a lie. I do not want to be dishonest and encourage a casual relationship with our First Love. You should be seeking His voice every moment of the day, and the only way to know when He is speaking to you individually is to know how He speaks by reading how He speaks to the church body collectively.
You cannot test things against the Spirit and the Word of God if you do not know what God has said.
This is a practice that you need to include in your life everyday. It is not a mistake or coincidence that God provided the Israelites with daily manna (Exodus 16:4). It is not an accident that Jesus had us pray to God to give us our daily bread (Matthew 6:11) – and then revealed Himself as the Bread of Life (John 6:35).
Getting into the Word daily is not something that is going to just happen, either. Like exercise and eating healthy, reading your bible is going to take discipline. It is going to take a game plan, to eliminate excuses. It may also take an accountability partner, someone who can check in on you.
At the end of the day, however, you are going to need to make it your goal and your prayer that God would give you a desire for His Word. I confess that I, myself, have only been actively consistent in the Word for a little over two years now. I have had previous seasons of my life where I was invested almost daily for several months at a time. But it wasn’t until I really made a game plan and found a way to hold myself accountable that I was able to plug in daily.
Living in the modern world, we have so many tools and resources that make the discipline of daily reading Scripture easier to incorporate into your life. I have found some resources that have helped me create plans to get into God’s Word consistently.
If you are not a natural planner, I am sorry, but you are going to need to make a plan. Just like getting up early to work out in the morning, it is much easier to find excuses to skip or miss out on time reading your Bible if you just wing it every day. Make friends with a planner or use some of the resources below, to help you create an approach to get into God’s Word.
Make a Schedule
The first thing you are going to want to do is to set aside time every day. In the past, I have tried to just lackadaisically find time in the day to read, but I am far more consistent when I pick a time.
I began by trying to read before bed. I tend to be a night owl, so I reasoned that the best time for me to read would be right before bed when I felt like I could concentrate on the passage more. To my surprise, I found that this was usually not the best time for me. Bedtime is actually my least structured part of the day (I know I need to work on this for my own sleep hygiene), and sometimes I was too tired to try to focus. Or the day got away from me and I was crawling into bed much later than I anticipated. The time did not work for me.
Having learned from many days of failing to get into my Bible, I had to adjust my game plan. Now, I do my best to get my reading done in the morning. I have found other benefits to reading first thing. I am not a morning person, so it actually causes me to slow down and focus on what I am reading. I am a breakfast person, so I tend to make my coffee and breakfast to go along with my Bible reading routine I began this practice in Spring of 2020 during the pandemic and by the end of that year, I fell in love with getting up and setting aside time for God.
Your schedule may be completely different. It may be easier for you to get up and do a workout and then read your bible. I am jealous of people who can do audio books, because one woman I follow on Instagram has the passage for the day read out loud to her while she gets ready (putting makeup on, doing her hair – generally pretty mindless tasks). You may be able to listen to it in the car or on public transportation on your way to work or school. Some people may do better setting aside time during their lunch breaks.. Others have a much better nighttime schedule than I do, so getting the reading done in the evening may work for them.
At the end of the day, find time in your schedule to set aside at least 15 minutes to do some reading and prayer. You don’t need to read 5 chapters at a time, but you should set aside a quarter of an hour to be able to read, contemplate, and re-read again (especially if reading comprehension is not your gifting and you need to engage with the text a little bit more).
Evaluate Often
You also should evaluate how the time is working for you. Are you able to usually get something out of the reading that causes you to learn about God Himself or your relationship with Him – or is the time filled with too many distractions so you are not able to focus on what you are reading? Are you able to consistently get in the time every day? Are you finding it hard to set aside that time as it gets swallowed with everything else? It may take adjustments here and there.
Mamas, I want to encourage you to not allow motherhood to keep you from going to God. I am not a mother yet (I am sure this is a journey I will take you on in the future on the blog), but it is so imperative for you to find time to spend with God so you are filled up. Finding 15 minutes in the day is doable, I promise. It may be harder for you to find a consistent time, but I want to encourage you against the mom guilt of having your baby or child watch a TV show for 15 minutes or play independently so that you can get time with your Heavenly Father. Your child will then see proof that setting time aside for God is important and you will have such an impact on your children.
The goal for bible reading should not be perfection. It is nice to keep track and try to be in God’s word every day. But that may not happen 365 days of the year (I missed one last year and my perfectionism tried to let that haunt me!). It is far better to intentionally engage 300 days of the year than to try to let things happen for 60 of them.
So I Have The Time…What Do I Read?
After you have set aside time to spend with God, the next part of your plan should be how you are going to do it. You can certainly open your bible and just begin reading, but I have found in my experience and talking with others that this doesn’t always lead to consistent reading. With the glorious World Wide Web and apps on our phones, there are ways to find reading plans that can help you get the most out of your time with God while also helping you stay engaged and wanting to come back every day. That can be really hard if you’re determined to go through the Western Bible from Genesis to Revelation– how many of us began and were wiped out by the time we get to Leviticus only to just give up? The bible does not need to be read in concordance order to get the most out of it.
Instead, I would encourage you to find studies or plans that allow you to connect God’s Word with your season of life at the moment. Or one that may challenge you to change your perspective. Or answer questions you may have about your walk with the Lord. Use resources that your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ have made available to help you plan how to begin your daily reading.
As you begin to try to discern where you want to start, you should also avoid two easy traps:
Reading just one verse of the bible every day
Reading a commentary or a commentary version of the Bible in place of actual Scripture (I’m sorry, but Jesus Calling should not be the only devotional you are using)
It is important to read chunks of the Bible at a time. Reading an entire chapter is going to give you greater context than reading one verse. Otherwise, you’ll continue to believe that the verse “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) means He’s going to help you do the most impossible thing in the most ill prepared time. In proper context, the reader understands that Paul is talking about being able to endure suffering because of his belief and devotion to God, and God sustaining Him through hardship.
Two totally different understandings of a verse that require a different approach to Christian living.
Along with context, it is important that we begin to learn more about the cultural context and historical context of the passages we are reading. Otherwise, we can often miss very big and important concepts that are being taught to us.
I am not telling you that you need to become a theologian or a scholar. However, I do think there is a benefit to arming ourselves with more knowledge about how we can approach the Word of God like the audience in that period. It also keeps us from taking on promises that were specifically made to the Jewish peoples and not to Christians as a whole.
The Reading Basics
Getting back to the basic, we can begin by considering the three things we should be asking ourselves every time we engage God’s Word:
What is the passage saying directly to the audience of that time?
What is the passage saying to me? (This is where it is important that we pray before reading so that the Spirit can speak to our hearts and they can be ready to listen)
How can I apply this concept, thought, or principle to my life?
By asking yourself these questions, you’re requiring your brain to engage and think more deeply about the Word of God. The more you meditate on the message, the deeper it can permeate your heart.
Now, as a word of encouragement – there are going to be some mornings where you are really going to struggle with answering these questions. You may respond with “I don’t know”. Do not use this as a cue to give up and quit reading. Keep engaging.
Just like physical exercise, spiritual exercise will help you grow stronger in your walk and relationship with God even when it doesn’t feel like anything is happening.
Some seasons, God seems really quiet when we are engaging with Him. Others, it can be hard to keep up with the lessons He is pouring out.
When the going gets tough – keep going. You will be rewarded greatly for your persistence, loyalty, and dedication. And you can be sure that God will not allow that time to go fallow.
It really is that simple– and not simple– to grow your roots deep in the Lord. Daily reading and meditation of His Word can help us grow to know Him more intimately as well as equip us to test the voices that we may begin to hear in our personal prayer life to discern if those thoughts, urges, or contemplations are from the Spirit.
After all of this, however, you may feel a bit overwhelmed with where to start. I hope to shed some light on that in my next post (so keep an eye out) and give you some resources to utilize
While you wait – why don’t you go open your Bible? The book of Proverbs is always a very good place to start!