It is very popular for people to try to read the Bible in a year. This ends up being a New Year’s resolution for many people. Maybe you yourself have once tried to complete this task. Sadly it follows the path of most other resolutions – excitement, apathy, to failure. There are several reasons that explain this.
The first and main reason in my estimation is that reading the amount of text every day that would allow a person to read the Bible in a year is too difficult for the average person based on their current level of discipline.
When you run the math, reading the Bible in a year requires reading about 4 chapters of text per day. 3 Of those daily chapters come from the Old Testament which are notoriously long and difficult passages. In all, people go from reading no Bible text each day to trying to read 4 chapters which takes the average reader 15-20 minutes at a minimum. Even though it doesn’t sound like a lot on paper, that is actually a huge time commitment for someone getting started.
It is the same as people who try to start working out by jumping right into 45-60-minute workouts. The problem is that the foundational habit and low-level discipline are not developed. That low-level discipline is developed through humility, being willing to do a small amount of work, and accepting your current discipline is not adequate for the larger goal you have set for yourself.
Another problem is that people do not have the consistency to read the Bible daily.
Not only do they have to spend more time reading each day than they have probably spent in the last year, but they have to do it every day without fail. While it’s true that you can always “make up” time by reading more if you happen to miss a day, this is even more difficult than the base level of reading that was required. What person is going to be able to maintain a 4 chapter a day pace, and then read 8 chapters a day if he misses one day? You can see how someone can easily get behind in their reading, become very discouraged, and quit.
I argue the solution is to start much smaller with the reading habit. Start with attempting to read just one chapter per day at most. For most people, this is much more manageable. And for others, this may still be too much work. There are people in rehabilitation hospitals who are so weak that they cannot even hold themselves up while sitting on the side of the hospital bed.
The moment they go from lying down to sitting up, their heart rate spikes, their blood pressure drops, they become dizzy and lightheaded, and their O2 saturation drops. All these physiologic changes reflect a weakened physiological system resulting from trauma, pathology, or disuse. But a few attempts at sitting at the edge of the bed and they will become stronger. They can start to sit for longer and hold themselves up with less assistance. But they never would have made that initial progress without first sitting on the edge of the bed.
Many people trying to pick up a Bible-reading habit are in the same position. They are training their spiritual body again for the first time in months, years, or perhaps ever. As a result, many are not going to have the strength to be able to maintain the pace required to read the Bible in a Year.
Lastly, when people obsess over reading the Bible in a year, retention is sacrificed in favor of attempting to cover ground.
The goal becomes: “Just Read”. But the goal was never to just read, but rather to understand and integrate the teaching of the Bible into practical life.
The result of reading is learning. And we learn so we can modify the way we are acting. In many instances, this requires us to go beyond mere reading and engage in what the Bible calls “Meditating”. Now this is not Eastern meditation where one tries to reduce or observe their own thoughts. The instances where meditation is used in the Bible often refer to what we would commonly call “concentration”. It involves the orientation of the thinking apparatus to the material at hand for the purpose of absorbing it. And through absorbing those principles, we can actually make lasting changes in our lives.
First, just build the habit of showing up.
Before you try to set the goal of running a marathon, you first have to start running each day. You will not get anywhere if you cannot develop the basic follow-through to complete the fundamental tasks. That is what we have to do with the Bible reading habit. You are not going to be able to read the Bible in a year if you cannot first read the Bible each day. You have to get into the habit of showing up, even if only for 3 minutes, for 1 chapter, or even a half-chapter of reading. It is more than acceptable to stay at this point for several weeks or even several months.
Set your Bible out where you can see it, and have it open and ready for your reading each day. This eliminates those points of friction – having to take the Bible out, having to open it, having to decide what to read. These are each task you have to do, small points of friction, and they will stop you from completing your habit. Do not underestimate your ability to be lazy and to give up action because there are too many points of friction. Eliminate as many of those as you can.
Identify what has stopped the basic habit of reading in the past and remove those.
Then set the tiny goal of reading at least 5 verses per day. It seems inconsequentially small, but it will be something most people don’t have – progress. Progress and the ability to show up daily. That puts you in the top 20% of Christians, did you know that? If 80% of Christians are not reading their Bible daily, and you start reading just 5 verses per day, you are in the 20%. That is incredible. Welcome yourself to the upper echelons of Bible reading success. All that from just 5 verses per day.
Now of course you won’t continue reading just 5 verses per day forever. That is just there to start you on the habit. Once established, you can then modify the habit. James Clear writes that “A Habit must be standardized before it can be optimized”. The same applies to your daily Bible reading. You must establish the habit through repetitions before you can add to it and optimize it. That is the essence of discipline. Start small and build from there. Then before you know it, you will have the habit built and the discipline developed to attempt to read the Bible in a year. Good luck.
