I Get Sleepy When I Read the Bible

Sometimes we read, sometimes we sleep, and information technology's adept when we tin can become enough of both. Provincial Afternoon, original oil painting past Steve Henderson, sold.

I was chatting with a gracious and dedicated person the other solar day who blurted out,

"I can't read the Bible for 20 minutes without falling comatose!"

You know, non many people are this honest, and if more of usa were, we'd enjoy existence in one some other's visitor.

Because every bit I'm certain you lot know, the correct respond to this lament looks like this:

"Obviously, you exercise non have a close plenty human relationship with Jesus. If you did, you would be so passionate and excited most His Discussion, that you couldn't possibly go to slumber."

Dispensing with Convention

In that location. At present that nosotros've got the conventional, insensitive response out of the way, peradventure nosotros can move on to solving the trouble, which to me looks twofold:

1) This person isn't getting enough sleep

and

ii) This person WANTS to exist interested in what's in the Bible, but isn't sure about how to become almost information technology.

Let's talk about Trouble one first, with the obvious solution of, somehow, getting more sleep. One of my progeny, in the try to survive in a cold, calculating social club that treats people like cattle, works 7 days a calendar week at low-paying jobs (she has a degree, by the way, every bit do many people you encounter in depression-paying jobs) to barely make it. Add that to the coursework she'southward simultaneously pursuing to better her lot, plus fourth dimension to eat and sit with the kitty, and in that location's not much time left to sleep.

Stop worrying about convention and being conventional and do things you own colorful, original, contained way. Mesa Walk, original painting past Steve Henderson, sold. Licensed open edition print at Swell Large Canvas and Light in the Box.

Make Sleep a Priority

But she makes sleep a priority, grabs what she can, and when she does arise at four:thirty a.m., information technology's not for Serenity Time, simply because she has to be at work by 5. Too many Christians feel compelled and impelled to wake up when it's still nighttime and "read" their Bible, when realistically they are staring at the tiny print and nodding off.  They need more sleep.

You know that snitty fiddling ditty — "7 days without prayer — or Bible reading — makes i weak!"? It's not in the Bible. God will wait, and if you need to grab upwardly on your sleep, He understands. (Incidentally, y'all can pray to Him, which basically means talk to Him, someday. It doesn't take to fit into a designated Placidity Time. And some other Incidentally: the term Quiet Fourth dimension is not in the Bible either. Tin can we get rid of it?)

And then, my gracious and dedicated conversant needs to feel free to go the sleep he or she needs. Step One.

Less Fourth dimension, More Interesting

Step Two: if yous fall asleep after 20 minutes in the Bible, and so don't read for 20 minutes. Try x. Or 5. Just read something. And ponder it throughout the day. Over time, what we read, and think, and pray, adds up.

Step Three, which addresses Problem 2, above: find a volume in the Bible that interests yous, and read it. Me? I honey Genesis, for the stories and mystique; it segues into Exodus, which knocks your socks off if yous approach information technology by believing that what it says is true — yes, God parted the Red Sea, and yes, Moses got water out of a rock. For five minutes out of the solar day, free yourself from having to find a natural explanation for these miracles, and accident your mind by request, "What if these miracles actually happened?"

Skillful God — what does that say nigh God?

Now at some signal in Exodus you're going to run smack into,

"Brand the robe of the ephod entirely of blue cloth, with an opening for the head in its centre. In that location shall be a woven edge like a collar effectually this opening, so that it volition not tear." (Exodus 28: 31-32) I clinch you that well-nigh of us, no matter how rested, will autumn comatose after xx minutes of this.

Skip around — Nobody'south Watching

So feel complimentary to skip. Anytime, you may want to come back and really read this, but today, if you nod off over it and avoid the entire Bible considering you lot dread reading nigh the tunic, and the turban, and the linen undergarments, what are you gaining?

There are no rules for reading the Bible, and those who make them are more than concerned about the profit they receive from their written report books than they are about your human relationship with God.

Get some sleep. Ask God to help you with this.

And selection upwards His book and read something in it. Ask Him to help you with this, too.

Our God instructs us and teaches us in the right fashion (Isaiah 28: 26). Because He is wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom (Isaiah 28: 29), He knows how to work through our unique circumstances with the compassion and understanding that we and then desperately need.

Cheers

Cheers for joining me at Commonsense Christianity, where I strive to counteract the messages of opprobrium, reproof, and disapprobation that too frequently make up what we follow as religious, and Christian, educational activity.

God is a God of love — we overlook and forget that, simply it is the central point from which every step nosotros take, derives.

Posts similar to this ane are

Jesus Isn't All Yous Need — He's All You've GOT

Don't Worry: It'southward Non All up to You

Is the Bible Boring? (at my sister site, This Woman Writes)

ramirezflaid1987.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/commonsensechristianity/2014/02/reading-the-bible-makes-me-fall-asleep.html