#operationreadmybible (Part 3: I'm so tired)
When I asked the question “Why don’t you read the Bible as much as you want to?” one of the most frequent responses went something like this:
I’m tired and thus selfish with my free time, and I want to be entertained. I’m too worn out to think or learn.
I completely understand.
You’ve spent all day at work, stayed up all night studying for a test. Maybe you spent hours chasing and wrangling and teaching and punishing your brood of kids. You paid bills and made phone calls to your landlord. You mowed the lawn. You sent like six hundred emails.
Of course you’re tired.
Who wants to pile on another responsibility at the end of the day?
Nobody.
If this resonates, I think you need to hear this:
Bible reading is NOT something you do for God. Bible reading is something God does for you.
Reading your Bible isn’t another task to be done. It might feel like that at first, but it’s not. It’s a help for doing all the tasks. My friend Whitney said it’s like taking your vitamins. And it is, but more.
I know it’s hard to believe, but making time for Bible reading dramatically changes the course, pace, and mood of your day (and life).
When I read the Bible, I get stuff done. I smile a lot. I respond to my kids with patience. When I don’t read the Bible, I don’t.
Bill Hybels wrote, “You’re too busy not to pray.” I feel exactly the same way about reading the Bible.
When you read the Bible, God fills you. He grows you. He shapes you. He comforts you. He leads you into joy and hope.
He doesn’t just tell you to become a better person; the act of reading itself awakens the Spirit inside you and begins the work of transformation. And when you’re a better person, life is easier to live. You make fewer consequence-spilling mistakes. You build more bridges. You have healthy priorities…
You can’t handle your life by yourself. It’s too hard. You will certainly run yourself into the ground.
But. If you look to the Word of God for strength and courage and hope, you can make it.
If you’re tired, you’re too tired not to read your Bible.
I challenge you to read every day for three weeks and see if you’re more or less tired at the end.
We’ll end with these words from David in Psalm 119 about the Word of God:
If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have preserved my life…Let me live that I may praise you,
and may your laws sustain me.
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P.S. Here’s a list of people who (at the height of their power) weren’t too tired to regularly read the Bible (this is not a blanket endorsement of these men, just a clear indication that anybody can make time for Bible reading):
- Napoleon
- Abraham Lincoln
- George W Bush
- Ronald Reagan
- Dwight Eisenhower
- Andrew Jackson