Do you like reading? I have noticed that people either love it or hate it. There usually isn't an in-between when it comes to reading. I hate reading. Now, to those that know me would hear that statement and say that I am a liar. If you know me, I usually have two books going at a time, and I usually end up finishing between 20-25 books in a year. So to the untrained eye you would think that I love reading because that is all I do. 

However, that is far from the truth. I am learning to enjoy reading the more I do it, but it is not as enjoyable to me as some people would think. 

The reason I find reading hard is because of a few reasons. One is that I cannot keep my eyes open, reading puts me to sleep faster than a brewery popping up in Bellingham. Two, my mind has a hard time concentrating and seems to move in many different directions. So a lot of the time, I have to re-read a page because I was thinking of something else and have no idea what I just read and that gets annoying. And thirdly, I am lazy by nature, period. I don't want to spend time reading. So, you are probably wondering why do you bring this up? 

I bring this up to share that I have hated reading in the past, but there are certain purposes to why I read often. My hope is that these three objectives will give you a desire to read more and often. 

1. Grow

I don't know about you, but I have never been satisfied with where I am at in life. It could be sports, schooling, parenting, whatever but I have this insatiable desire to grow. I was never this way growing up, though. I hated spending time on something to get better at it. If I weren't good at it in the first place, I wouldn't even want to try. As I grew up though I realized that by reading more often I was giving myself an opportunity to grow. 

Specifically, I wanted to grow more in love with Jesus. The books that I spend most of my time have to do something about Christianity. As I navigated, my relationship with Jesus I realized that a Christian is not passive but is called to be active. Our sovereign Creator uses means, like learning, to grow us and transform us. Once I figured out this reality, I realized that even though I dislike reading I needed to produce a habit of reading. I wanted to grow as a Christian. However, I didn't wish to grow as a Christian to gain a right standing before God; He sees me as perfect only because of Jesus' perfect life, death, burial, and resurrection. 

I want God to continue to use the means of reading to grow my knowledge of Him in hopes that reading strengthens my relationship with my King. 

I read to grow.

2. Remember

I am a forgetful person by nature. I wish I could remember things I learned years ago. But as everyone knows, if you don't use the thing you often discovered your mind tends to forget it all together. Our minds were created to remember things, but we tend to remember the things we interact with on a regular basis. 

Therefore, because I forget often, I read to remember my identity as a Christian. As Christians, we are saved not by our quality of faith, or our quantity of faith but by who our faith is in, Jesus Christ. He is the object of our faith and because of that I read so I don't forget this great reality. I desire such theological clarity so that when my mind wanders or my world gets rocked by some unexpected incident, I want to be able to remember Who I have faith in, Jesus Christ the righteous one.  

I read to remember. 

3. Lead Others

Lastly, I read because I know I am called to be a leader. Now you might read this and say, yes but I am not a leader. I believe everyone is called to be a leader. Whether you are in college, young married, deacon, elder, church member, father, mother, you are called to be a leader in some capacity. 

There are different levels of leadership I believe the Bible lays out pretty clearly. For example, husbands are to lead their wives and homes, the Apostle Paul was a leader of movements, And we are all called to be disciples of Jesus which implies we are to be leaders of self. I would put these into four different categories, the leader of self, leader of others, leader of organizations, and leader of movements. I think these groups gives enough handles to knowing what we're called to. 

So in that regard, If you don't have a family, you certainly are still called to be a leader of yourself. 

I read because I want to continue to keep my mind sharp and continue to grow in greater capacity to lead. I want to lead myself well; I want to lead my family well, and certainly I want to go in leading others well. 

I read because I am a leader.

4. Where Do I Start?

If you are not a reader, the best practical advice I can give you is just to start reading. Even that information is hard just to start doing when you hate reading. Here is what I did when I began to try and read more, I started small and picked five books I wanted to read within a year (here is a list if you need help getting started, or ask a friend you trust what they would recommend). I would add all the book pages up and divide by 365 days (because that is how many days are in a year). This number would give me a great starting point to know how many pages per day I needed to read to get through my goal.

For example, you take five books that are 200 pages each, add them all up and you get a 1000 pages of reading. Divide that number by 365 days in a year and, voila!, you get 2.74 pages a day. That is how many pages you need to read a day to finish those five books.

By doing this, I gave myself a possible target when it came to reading. Meaning that I was no longer intimidated by reading any longer.

Reading is worth it, even if you find reading the worst.

I love God's Word. I really do.

But sometimes, I'm just not feelin' it.

When you break it down, reading the Bible is not hard. Set a time, you set a place, brew your coffee or pour your tea, and start right in. Or maybe it's even simpler: you just start.

More often than not, however, I often find my mind wandering, and wandering for a host of reasons. I'm tired. My mug is empty. It's dark. This doesn't make sense. This does make sense and I don't like it.

And all of a sudden, I am aware that my mind is hungry, but for anything but what lies before me on the kitchen table.

The God of the universe is talking to me, and I'm bored.

It seems to come in seasons. Sometimes, I'll be learning a ton, feeling completely absorbing in God's Word, so blown away by what He's done, amazed by His character and gracious disposition towards people who generally don't give a flying fig about Him.

And yet other times, reading the phone book seems more interesting.

 

We Don't Need A Trick List. We Need Jesus.

When we're frustrated and bummed out and struggle to pray and read, our greatest need is not a list of tips and tricks to "fix ourselves." Because we can't. Our greatest need is described in the pages in front of us.

We need grace, and God gives it at the cost of His Son, who succeeded in perfect communion with His Father. Because of Jesus, we have a perfect Bible reading and prayer record, and it's as if we'd done it for all the right reasons. Because of Jesus and the new life we have in Him, we actually can enjoy reading God's Word.

However, Bible reading and devotional time is still a struggle at times, and it will continue to be this side of the Second Coming.

Here are some things that seem to at least help me when I'm discouraged with my lack of devotion.

 

1. Pray

Yeah, I know. Total Sunday School answer. But it really is true.

Prayer is talking to God. It's reflecting on His holiness and telling Him so, wanting Him to be worshiped above all things. It's asking for His way in heaven to be the way things are here, His glory revealed in this broken world of ours. It's acknowledging our brokenness and our need for His grace and mercy in Jesus, and asking for things so that He would be glorified.

God wants to be glorified. He's the best there is. He loves you, wants you to delight in Him, and wants you to grow and become more like Jesus.

Honestly, praying towards that end may or may not lead to better Bible time, at least in terms of experience. But prayer reminds us that we're needy, and acknowledging that we don't have the focus or strength or determination in ourselves is often what we need most when we're struggling to read the Bible.

 

2. It's Better to Feel Frustrated Than Not to Feel at All

Humans need sustenance. It's hardwired into us. Without food or water, we die. And so, we hunger and thirst. It's part of being human.

When it comes to scripture and prayer, being frustrated that you're not hungry or thirsty for what you know you need is a good thing. That means you're alive.

As we said before, pray that Jesus would become sweeter to you and that your love for Him would grow. But take comfort in the fact that you actually care.

 

3. You May Not Be Doing Anything Wrong

In a world where so much of what we get is based on what we sacrifice, it can be easy to take boring Bible time as an indication or sign of sin in our lives. And while we all sin, that may not be the best assumption.

God is smarter than us. He knows what we need, what we feel, what we think before we think it. It may be that, in His wisdom, He causes us to feel a bit disconnected so that we learn something that we wouldn't otherwise.

God can be displeased with us. God disciplines us, another extension of His wisdom. In times where we feel disconnected with God, we need to remember that we are connected to Him in Christ. That lets us, without fear of condemnation, ask Him and others if there's sin in our lives that we can't see, and then joyfully turn to Jesus for forgiveness.

But boring Bible time could just be a season of life, too, where we need to learn to trust God to give us what we need, even if it doesn't feel awesome to receive.

4. Just Keep Trying

Often when I'm sick, I lose my appetite completely, and the very last thing I want is to eat. But even if I can't keep anything down, it's generally better to eat even nibbles and crumbs of crackers and sips of Sprite than to have nothing at all.

Keep pressing into what you know you need. Know that God is good, that He loves you, that He wants what's best for you.

Know that there's grace to fail and strength to continue.

Even when we're just not feelin' it.

The Parable Of The Lawn Mower: We all know that words, without deeds, are dead. All of us have seen the terrible effect of a person who doesn’t practice what they preach, and if we haven’t, then we have read the New Testament and found such people in its pages. But fewer of us recognize that deeds, without words, are also dead.

7 Signs We May Be Worshipping Our Family: By all means, let us enjoy and treasure our families. Let us celebrate the gift they are. Let us pour out our lives and hearts into ministering to our spouse, rearing our children in Christ, and filling our homes with the love and truth of Christ. However, in so doing, let us also be worshippers of the Christ we are seeking to honor. Let us worship Him in our worshipping families, rather than worship our families in the name of worshipping Him.

The Pastor's Kid: Who should read The Pastor’s Kid? It’s a must-read for PKs and their parents. It also is an invaluable guide for church members that will gently correct some misconceptions about how to minister to PKs. Piper speaks with the heart of not just a PK but a parent who is seeking to love his own children well. The Pastor’s Kid deeply stirred my memories of growing up and encouraged me to know that my feelings and journeys were not wasted. Barnabas, from one PK to another: thank you!

Answering Alternatives To The Resurrection: When it comes to the resurrection of Christ, there are an infinite number of possible alternative explanations for the development of belief in a risen Christ other than opting for the most obvious (Christ actually rose from the grave). For centuries skeptics and non-believers have offered their possibilities, but, in my opinion, they are never a probability.

7 Different Ways To Read A Book: Reading is kind of like repairing a bicycle. Kind of. For too long now my bike has been semi-operational. It has one brake that just doesn’t want to behave and all my attempts to fix it have failed. Why? Well it turns out that I haven’t been using the right tool. To get the bike working I need to use the right tool. And when it comes to reading, well, you’ve got to use the right tool—you’ve got to know what kind of reading to do. Here are seven different kinds of reading.

Preaching 'God' And Justifying The Self: Okay, so what I’m saying is, if you can see how that can work in the self-justifying God-rhetoric of the left, isn’t there just a chance those of us on the more conservative end of things can fall prey to this too? I mean, surely, if you’ve got a Reformed understanding of the power of indwelling sin, you can’t put this past yourself, right?

9 Things You Should Know About The Male Body Image Issues: Body image is the mental representation we create of what we think we look like; it may or may not bear a close relation to how others actually see us. Body image issues are often treated as if they were only a problem for women (see here for 9 Things on female body images issues). But men suffer from many of the same debilitating problems caused by skewed perceptions of their bodies. Here are nine things you should know about male body image issues...

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