How to Read the Bible When You Don't Feel Like It

Every long-term Christian hits stretches where opening the Bible feels like a chore. Discover why God's Word often unfolds hours after you read it, and why the flat mornings are never wasted.Every long-term Christian has stretches when opening the Bible feels like a chore. You sit down and read a chapter, the words look dull on the page, and 5 minutes after you close it you could not tell anyone what you read. Then the thought creeps in that something must be broken in you, because other people come away lit up and you came away with nothing. What you felt while reading is a poor gauge of what God put in you.This episode opens with Howard Rutledge, who spent his boyhood sitting through church in Tulsa and let the verses and old hymns wash right past him. In November 1965 his plane exploded over North Vietnam, and he was thrown into the prison the POWs called the Hanoi Hilton, where he stayed for almost 7 years, 5 of them alone. There was no Bible in that cell and no one to teach him. All he had was whatever was already in his head, so he started digging, rebuilding hymns line by line from Sunday school memory and keeping a running count.The psalmist points to why that mattered. Psalm 119:130 says, "The teaching of your word gives light, so even the simple can understand." An older rendering of the same verse puts it this way: the unfolding of your words gives light. Unfolding is a slow word. It is what a flower does over the course of a morning, and what an old letter does when someone finally opens it after years in a drawer. Nothing about unfolding is instant.So God's Word does not always reach you the moment your eyes cross it. You read a paragraph at 6 in the morning and feel nothing. Then at 2 that afternoon someone says something that cuts you, and a line from that paragraph comes back and meets you right there. Only then do you realize you were reading for a reason. The light showed up hours after the reading did.That is why the flat mornings still count. Every time you open your Bible, you are putting something within reach for a day you cannot see yet. Rutledge was handed his words in a Sunday school room decades before anyone locked a door on him. His one regret in that cell was that he had not hidden more of God's Word while he had the chance.BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:Why a flat, forgettable reading session is not evidence that something is broken in youWhat Psalm 119:130 reveals about the slow way God's Word unfolds and gives lightA practical way to read today for a day that has not arrived yet, and what to watch for laterYou are reading now for a day that has not come yet. Keep opening it on the mornings when nothing seems to happen.Share This Episode:https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/287Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail:https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemailWant to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast.https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/Rate and Reviewhttps://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/Connect with BartFacebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylivesWebsite: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.comFeeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe.