The "Best" Devotional Plan?
How’s your Bible in a Year reading plan going? Still on track? Left it behind two weeks in? What if I told you that reading your Bible in a year (BIAY) wasn’t the best way to read your Bible?
I know, I know. I can hear the gasps all the way from here. Check your coffee cup, make sure it’s still right side up.
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A Badge of ... Honor? Or a Tripping Stone?
I’m not sure when being able to read the Bible from cover-to-cover became a badge of honor within Christian communities, but at some point, it seems to have become the gold standard. Now, don’t get me wrong, reading your Bible through in a year is a pretty impressive feat. It shows dedication, perseverance, sheer stick-with-it-ness. And sometimes that’s what we need.
But how many times have you (or someone you know) started a BIAY plan and by mid-January or February lost your steam? Or maybe you made it all the way to March (and depending on which plan you’re reading, you could be solidly into Numbers, just starting Leviticus, or even in 2 Kings by then!).
At some point, I’m guessing you’ve abandoned a BIAY reading plan. How did that make you feel? Frustrated? Guilty? Sick of the same trouble with building a consistent quiet time?
I’ve been there, too. (Probably more times than I’d care to admit #ifwe’rebeinghonest)
Is this how we dig deep?
Maybe you are excellent at BIAY reading plans. (I am not.) Maybe you’ve developed a solidly consistent plan and you are able to do a BIAY plan every year. Can I ask you a question?
(Spoiler alert: I’m going to anyway 😉)
Do you ever do any other type of Bible study for your personal devotions? (Not Bible study for class or church.)
How deep are you able to go in your study as you read through the Bible every year?
I don’t know about you, but when I do make it through the Bible in a year, I don’t get very much time in those study times to meditate on what I’m reading, let alone dig deeper into understanding the context or making connections across other passages.
BIAY plans generally mean you’re reading through the Bible so fast that you don’t have time to sit down and digest what you’re reading. It’s kind of like those evenings when you rush home from work, swinging through McDonalds to grab dinner for the kids, shove everyone in the car with soccer shoes half on/half off and inhale Happy Meals as you try not to speed too fast on your way to the soccer field, so you won’t be late for practice {again}. (Or is that just me?)
God’s word isn’t meant to be inhaled going 45 in a 25 MPH zone.
God’s word is meant to permeate our lives so that it becomes part of our DNA – an intrinsic part of our identity as God’s people (Deut. 6:4-9). We are to fix God’s words in our hearts and minds so that we don’t turn away from God (Deut. 11:16-21), and so we can pass the truth of God’s goodness and the testimony of His faithfulness to the next generation. We can’t fix our hearts and minds on God’s word if we aren’t taking time to mediate on it and ponder its meaning, searching out the context of a message that is separated from us by thousands of years. If we aren’t careful, we approach Scripture with too much of our own preunderstanding covering our eyes, hearts, and minds, and we can’t hear the Spirit through our own preconceived ideas about what Scripture means or is saying.
Famishing or Flourishing?
There are a lot of reasons we read our Bibles. One of the main reasons we should read our Bibles is to meet God in the pages, because the Bible is primarily God’s revelation of Himself to us. One reason we usually read our Bibles is because we want to grow in our faith (which is also a good reason!).
The biggest challenge we often face in reading our Bibles is consistency.
BIAY sets up blocks for all of these aspects of Bible reading. We’re reading quickly because we need to get all the day’s reading in for our allotted daily devotional time (or before we get interrupted), so it’s hard to slow down enough to meet God in the pages of His word. It’s also hard to grow in your faith when you’re rushing through the motions of discipleship.
We can grow, but how much more could we flourish if we nurtured our souls during our study time, instead of rushing through the checklist so we can move onto the other demands of life?
But Lindsey, you might be saying. I don’t have time to flourish. I don’t even know what that might look like.
How can I slow down enough to flourish when there’s a toddler screaming in my ear, or 25 emails waiting to be read, or {insert whatever life situation is pressing at you while you’re supposed to be reading your Bible}?
Here’s the deal, friend: Your soul needs you to flourish.
Our world takes and takes and takes from us constantly, and as believers we say we have access to peace and comfort and Living Water … but then we run around just as crazy as everyone else. It’s no wonder the world doesn’t often see anything different about us when they look at us.
We can grow, but how much more could we flourish if we nurtured our souls during our study time, instead of rushing through the checklist so we can move onto the other demands of life?
Deep *and* Wide
To grow in a relationship with someone, you need depth. You can’t build a close friendship on harried “hey, how are yous” as you pass another mom in the car pickup line, or in just trading pleasant small talk on a Sunday morning in church. You need time to get to know each other, to learn each other’s stories, to spend just sitting in each other’s company. If you are building a relationship with a significant other, you need time to learn about that person – their family, their past, their hopes and dreams for the future. If we want to grow in our relationship with God, then we need to have time to learn about who God is and how God works in the world and in and through us. To grow in that relationship, we also need consistency.
Consistency is hard. Consistency requires showing up even when you don’t feel like it. It requires discipline, and as rebellious creatures, we often chafe against it. But when we have success – when we make connections and see progress in our spiritual life, then those small victories provide the fuel for us to keep going when the going gets tough. The more successes we can build up in our walk with God – the more times we choose to spend time with God instead of scrolling through social media or binging our favorite subscription service, the more our brains and hearts are wired to help us want more of that feeling. Consistency rewards consistency.
Here’s what it boils down to: slower-paced, consistent dives into scripture give us a better grasp on God’s word.
We can still go through the whole Bible – we just don’t have to do it at a breakneck pace. This allows us to dive deeper – to stop and re-read when something doesn’t click the first time, or to learn more when something is interesting or even confusing. It’s okay to slow waaaay down and take tiny chunks of deep moments when life gets chaotic. We don’t have to worry about being “off schedule” or “making up days” because the goal isn’t to finish at a certain time or check off certain boxes. We need to redefine what the real goal of Bible study is. The goal is to show up, dive in, and dwell in God’s presence so we can carry it with us as we go about our day.
So, does that mean you can never do a BIAY reading plan again? Nah. Sometimes a big picture challenge is good for us. And let’s face it – any time spent reading your Bible is a good thing. But maybe there’s a better way to study scripture and dive deeper into God’s word: by slowing down and meditating on it, one piece at a time.
Want to know what that looks like? Check out the teaching I did on Diving Deeper in Bible Study for the PFWomen Youtube channel for a discussion on simple ways to dive deep in your personal Bible study!
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Check out this handy guide to reading the NT in context, with great discussion questions!