In Jeremiah 15:16 we read about the joy of God’s Word:
Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by Thy name, O LORD God of hosts.”
Can I ask you a question?
How many consecutive meals have you missed simply because you couldn’t find the time to sit down and eat?
It’s a rhetorical question to make the point of reading God’s word each day. We make time to eat. We make time to feed our family. We make time to shop for food. And if all else fails, we make time for the drive-through. The point is: We make time for our basic needs. Why not God’s Word?
Can I share a pet peeve with you? It’s this: Ideas on how to find time to read the Bible daily.
As you know, that time is rarely found. We really must stop trying to figure out how we can fit it into our busy lives. Rather, it would be better to figure out how to fit the rest of our activities around hiding a portion of God’s Word in our hearts each day.
How To Transition
Speak Scripture to your children. Here is how to do that. When your children ask: “Mommy can we have breakfast now?” here are some replies that place the importance and supremacy on God’s Word:
- “Yes, but first we are going to ‘meditate on God’s Word, so that we may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.'” Joshua 1:8
- “Yes, but remember, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,‘ so we are going to read the Bible first. Matthew 4:4
- “Yes, but God’s Word ‘was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope,’ so we are going to read first.” Romans 15:4
- “Yes, first though we are going to open our ‘eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of [God’s] law.'” Psalm 119:18
- “Yes, but first, we are going to seek the LORD ‘with [our] whole heart…; let [us] not wander from [His] commandments! [We] have stored up [His] word in [our] heart, that [we] might not sin against [Him].” Psalm 119:10-11
- “Yes, but our ‘delight is in the law of the Lord,’ so we will eat after we read.”
- “Yes, but we are to do our ‘best to present [ourselves] to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth,’ so we will eat after reading.” 2 Timothy 2:15
- “Yes, first though we need to treasure ‘the words of His mouth more than [our] portion of food,’ so we will read first.” Job 23:12
Getting Practical
I want to begin to wrap this up by axing one of the most popular excuses, “But Jennifer, you don’t understand, I truly don’t have the time each day.”
I have two suggestions for you:
- Dear friend, it’s not so. You do have the time, you just haven’t made it a priority. Begin to think differently about hiding God’s Word in your heart and the hearts of your children and I guarantee you’ll begin reading more often.
- Instead of eating a meal of your choice, read a chapter to your children (or yourself if you don’t have children). Most likely you’ll find the time for that meal you skipped
Knowing and teaching Scripture to your children is a non-negotiable. Instead of saying, “I don’t have the time, I don’t know how I’d fit it in, I wish I could…” Try saying, “I do have the time, I just need to rearrange some things, I will fit it in … (before breakfast, after lunch, first thing in the morning, etc)”, or simply “Children, let’s read.”
Don’t try to figure out how to fit in daily Bible reading, just start doing it. It will become habit.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye
Another practical way to get His Word in your heart is to listen to it. My husband asked for an ipod for his birthday so he could listen while he worked. We had a friend from church put the entire Bible on it. He also just downloaded an app to his phone that will read Scripture to him (for times he doesn’t have the ipod with him).
I keep a window open on my phone from BibleGateway that allows us to listen while we eat breakfast. It really is as simple as taking a few minutes to download an app to your phone, keeping a window open if you have wifi at home or any number of ways that doesn’t actually require you to read if you are truly that strapped for time.
Make the filling your children’s hearts with Scripture as second nature as filling their cereal bowls each morning. As a confidently called as a homemaker, teaching them the Word of God is your blessed duty.
So true! How easy is it to have scripture listened to if nothing else while dinner is going rather than the tv. A chapter read only takes a couple minutes. Thank you Jennifer.
“rather than the tv” LOVE it!! And you are right, it really only takes a few minutes to read a chapter. Something else I like to do… have one of the children read to all of us… Scripture and reading practice!
I really needed to read this. I end up going to bed guilty every single day about how I never got any bible time in. But you are right. There really is no excuse! Especially when there are so many easy ways to add it into your routine each day.
I have two stories:
Some of the greatest wisdom and surprised scripture quoting would come from my husband at the most opportune moments, catching me off guard. I would ask him “how do you know that?!?” His response was always that his mother always read scripture to him every morning while he ate breakfast.
My second suggestion is, when our daughter was growing up, I always had the kitchen radio on my favorite Christian broadcasting station. Good teachers like Charles Stanley; Chuck Swindoll; John MacArthur, etc. I can still see her face as she walked into the house after school with a “roll my eyes and frown,” look. I know she did not like it going while she was home; however, I credit much of her education scripturally to the Christian broadcasting running in the background.