Are You An Avid or Sacrificial Bible Reader?

Are you an Avid or Sacrificial Bible Reader?
Is Bible reading a divine joy or a conciliatory slot in your day planner?
Here’s some ideas to get rewarding daily study time.

Are You an Avid or Sacrificial Bible Reader?

This is the topic of an article in a Christian periodical we get in the mail.

To introduce the gist let me quote parts of the first paragraph:

What have you and I been reading this past week or month? How much time have we spent reading or listening? Have we taken the time to analyze our long-term reading patterns and ponder what we have consumed, to think about the level of satisfaction and fulfillment we have had, and what our reading has done for us? Am I happy with the habits I have established in my life, the ones my family will remember me for? Is my peace untroubled as I think of giving a final accounting of time spent and material consumed?

Bryan Wenger

“Avid” doesn’t necessarily mean voracious. Wiktionary says it means showing great interest in something or a keen desire to do something. “Voracious” means devouring great quantities, e.g. food. We can be avid readers without consuming great quantities every day.

So what is a “sacrificial” reader? Sacrifice means “to give away something of value in order to gain something else of value.”

We know Bible reading is a part of the whole Christian living thing.

When we first gave our lives into God’s keeping and accepted Jesus as the Savior of the evil inside us, we tended to the avidly voracious type of Bible reader. We simply couldn’t get enough. Our hearts, eyes, ears… all our senses consumed everything about the miracle of peace, as often as possible.

After awhile, real life happened again. Voracious fell away a little as time constraints and duties to our families needed picking up again. Crises and commitments drew our focus away from the avidity.

Yet we wanted it. We need that time with God’s Word to keep the Life we want. To keep the fountains flowing and the Spirit guiding. We can’t depend on memory alone, although in a pinch, it’s all we need.

That raises the big, complicated question…

Do we remain avid readers?

Or do we become sacrificial readers?

How To Be An Avid Bible Reader

Considering my Bible reading compared to my dedicated husband’s reading,

these are tips that help us remain avid Bible readers:

Make it the first thing that happens after dressing for the day and a time of prayer. (my husband)
Prop the Bible on the breakfast table when time is running short and you’re eating alone. (a good friend)
Snuggle up to your husband as he reads, and acquire it almost like osmosis. (me, reading over his shoulder, catching verses here and there)
Steer every thought in your day towards God, His ways, and His love by silently repeating Bible verses from memory. (every satisfied Christian I know)
Just start. Anytime of the day. Hold the Bible in your hands, turn the pages, and you will read. Guaranteed. You won’t be able to put it down until you have gained insight and comfort.
Pick a topic to study. Perhaps the minister’s Sunday sermon gave you an earworm about something. Go after it, in the Bible. Make notes and dig a little deeper. (This is the time for Bible journaling.)

How do you remain avid with your Bible reading?

Is it a pleasant habit with a specific time slotted each day, bringing great reward?

Do you have to force yourself?

Set an alarm, grab the Bible, and with one eye on your planner, fulfill the time you’ve allotted?

There’s good sacrificial and bad sacrificial, isn’t there? That last sentence describes a sacrificial reading to stay away from. Although, despite yourself, what begins as bad sacrifice (almost resentfully slotting the time in your planner) invariable becomes good sacrifice. God carries you away into meditation before you know it. Then the sacrifice becomes reluctantly following the rest of the slots in your planner.