I’ve been reading the Bible every day since the new year started. This is a pretty big deal for me. I started reading through the Bible every year at a young age and was struggling with quiet time righteousness and so at one point in college I thought it would be good to break the cycle and take some time off. It’s been a long time. I still don’t know if I’ll ever get over all my issues, but I figure that it’s a good thing to read the Bible, and I ought to do it, and in doing, I might find the desire for it that I long for.
Search This Classical Life:
categories:
in the middle of:
read in 2016:
Paterson, The Great Gilly Hopkins
Sloan, Ajax Penumbra 1969
Mandel, Station Eleven
Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty
Shakespeare, As You Like It
Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saintsarchives:
Wow, I am the exact same way. Exact. I’m now 10/10 this year, but that makes me nervous because I’m setting myself up for failure. I said this to Craig the other day and then followed it up with, “Because, you know, God loves us more if we have a quiet time every single day. And we get more points if we do it in the morning, but I’m not concerned about more points yet, so I’m doing well to get it in in the evening.”
Right. So that’s pretty much the reason I “stopped” (that and I have an atrocious sense of self discipline).
But I’m trying again.
cool!
I’ve had similar guilt/brownie-points issues. it’s helped to pray that God would increase my desire to know Him, and increase my desire for His word, and then not worry about getting it right, so to speak.
I’m also really able to relate with you on this one. I’m thankful for what God did in me through IV in college, but quiet time self-righteousness was one of the struggles I had coming out of college. I’m sure I had it before then too, but with IV stressing the importance of quiet times, it got a little worse.
I, too, am trying to read my Bible each day for the first time in a long time, since I want that hunger for God’s word too. I never know where to start, so I decided just to start at the beginning and read as much as I can each day while the girls nap before dinner–if it actually happens that they are napping at the same time. :)
Thanks be to God that he does not base our righteousness on our frequency or quality of our quiet/devotional times or anything else we do. As a mom, I’m seeing how imperfect I am and how much I rely on Christ for my right-standing before the Father.
Thank you for your post…it was a good encouragement for me…
Kristen, You are wise beyond your years. I hate to think of what I was doing in college.
Your readers who commented gave me much food for thought!
Love,
Anne
This is huge struggle for me, too. To the point that I almost dread reading the Bible alone–I start spinning in my head. I like to think of myself as so grace-filled, easygoing, but in reality I am a first-born pleaser, a self-righteous point-earner.
We visited a very popular evangelical “seeker” church recently (with kids we were babysitting–they go there)–a church that prides itself on being “authentic.” During worship, a church staff person, not the pastor, told the congregation that, “Let’s face it, if you’re not in the Word everyday, your spiritual life is a sham.” I actually gasped. Apparently my spritual life is *sham*, Kristen–who knew? And all because of that damn quiet time! Later I thought: “Other than my own innate sinfulness, which is abundant in and of itself, this is where all this crap in me came from–growing up in churches like this.”
I haven’t had a “quiet-time” in years–it seems to help to have Michael just read portions aloud for both of us in the evenings–or to listen to good N.T. Wright sermon online–listening to sermons doesn’t set me off like my little “quiet time” does. And just going through my day prayerfully, as I work, etc. doesn’t set me off. Also, using the BCP helps me get rid of the legalist headnoise.