Why I Don't Want to Be a Person Who Reads Her Bible

I bought a new Bible last night, one of those note-takers ones with the blank page across from the text. I’ve taken quite a fancy to those. They help me read by letting me write. It’s the way I’m wired.

On the ride home from the bookstore I was fantasizing about my new, more disciplined Bible study life and I thought, “I want to be a person who reads through her Bible every year.”

I listened to myself form the words and shuddered. “No,” I thought, “that’s not right.”

I do not want to be a person who reads her Bible. I just want to read my Bible.

Maybe it seems like semantics, but I don’t think it is. I caught myself caring more about what sort of person I am than I did about encountering God and growing in His Word. I wanted to be something more than I wanted to know God, shifting the focus of study from God to me.

Jim Gardner, one of my favorite Bible class teachers, once said that spiritual disciplines aren’t ever about us; they are always about God. Sure, we benefit from them, but to approach any discipline in pursuit of self-betterment is to miss the point. The point is God. The point is always God.