There are a lot of Bible reading programs out there that want you to read several chapters of the Bible every day. I think that is awesome. It is noble and a good hard mental workout, so to speak.
The problem is that most people simply do not have the mental fitness to tolerate that kind of program yet. It would be great if they did, but it is simply too hard for them.
Most Christian are not reading their Bibles at all. So to go from zero verses a day to several hundred is a massive step.
Would you expect a person who has never worked out before to be able to start a professional-level training plan? They would kill themselves just attempting it. But even though we understand that you have to gradually build physical fitness, we forget that we have to do the same thing with mental fitness.
Sure, you could do that “all in” approach and make your training into a military boot camp. But most people will fail if they attempt to do that. It is just too much work. Even in military boot camp, the recruits sustain stress fractures because the workload is increased so dramatically compared to their baseline fitness that their bones do not have time to recover and adapt.
People start these Bible reading programs and almost instantly get stress fractures of the mind. The second they hit Leviticus, their motivation wanes and their new habit fails. This is because they did not have the habit built strongly enough to sustain that difficult section of reading.
Instead of slowly building up their ability to read and forming the habit of reading every day, they just right into a sprint.
Have you ever seen what happens when someone tries to jump on a treadmill that is already at top speed? The result is hilarious 100% of the time. Many people do the same thing with bible reading and have the exact same subsequent faceplant when it comes to their habits.
What is a man to do?
Here is a core principle for you to remember. 1 Verse per day is infinitely more than 0 verses per day. How much more work does the person who reads one verse per day complete compared to the person who reads zero verses? He does infinitely more work.
Reading just 1 verse per day already puts you ahead of 80% of the religious world.
Just 1 verse per day makes it easy and simple to get into the daily habit of reading your Bible.
Now is one verse anything to write home about? Not really. It is not impressive at all. But imagine that – doing something unimpressive already puts you in the 80th percentile. 15 seconds of work per day puts you ahead of 80% of Christians.
Of course, you do not want to indefinitely just read one verse per day. Once you firmly establish the habit and become the type of person who reads the Bible every day, you can start to increase your workload. And that is exactly what you are doing: you are becoming the type of person who reads the Bible every day. Get out of your mind the idea that you have to read massive amounts of scripture at once. You do not need to start out that way – but you do need to work up to it.
Start building the habit each and every day. There is no need to make a massive change. Make the smallest change that you can maintain with ease.
Starting a habit should be easy. It should not stay easy, but it should certainly start easy. Starting easy allows you to build momentum and confidence. It ensures that you are not missing any of your daily repetitions. Repetition is the key to habit formation.
Once you have been able to string together at least one month of Bible reading without fail, then you can start to add volume to your reading. It will be challenging, but it will be much easier and more sustainable than if you had tried to add all the reading onto your plate at once.
I love any kind of habits that can put you above average with small amounts of startup cost. this is one of those habits that will pay dividends if you can learn to create it.
Stop making excusing and living as one of the 80%. Pick up your bible and start putting in one verse per day. Increase the reading volume after 1 month, and never look back.
Read on: Common Core of Religion
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