HI ,
I am not much of a horse rider. I get the chance to do it maybe every five years or so. Effectively this means that my status resets to “beginner” every time.
Fortunately, for me, in my beginnerness, I always get to ride calm and gentle horses. Nothing rough. Nothing rowdy. Nothing wild.
The effective result of this is that I’ve never been thrown from a horse. I’ve had my fair share of awkward moments… but none of them involved me hitting the ground.
Just because I’ve never been thrown from a bucking bronco doesn’t mean that I’m not familiar with the process of failure.
When riding a horse, one form of “failure” is getting thrown. Another form is not being able to direct the horse where you want. Yet another form is struggling to mount or dismount.
I’ve definitely experienced some of these.
Just about every kind of activity that we could do entertains the risk of failure.
Sometimes, we just accept the failure and press through it. In those cases, the failure is not major and may not feel that risky.
Writing an email and misspelling a few words could be seen as this kind of low-grade failure. We’d rather not do it,but if it happens…. no big deal.
Other times, when we experience failure, it’s enough to stop us in our tracks.
Standing up in front of a crowd and speaking can be terrifying. You might be brave enough to try it once. But if you “fail” and stumble over your words and say “ummm…..” all the time, you might decide to never do that again.
There are times when fear of failure prevents you or me from even trying something.
That might be something like jumping out of an airplane – with a parachute. For some people that’s an absolutely terrifying prospect and the image of smashing into the ground means they’ll never ever do it.
Here’s the deal I want to get back to… when you get thrown from a horse, you have to get up, dust yourself off and get back on.
Failure happens, but the response is what matters (not the failure itself).
I’m telling you about this because I’m working through a pretty big “failure” myself. And the response matters.
For the last several years I’ve been reading thought the Bible. I think it’s the foundation of how we build our knowledge of God’s word. Without reading there can be no understanding.
But I made some schedule changes and essentially cut out the time when I was planning to do my daily reading. As a consequence I was more than 2 weeks behind where I was supposed to be in my yearly plan.
In this situation, I had 3 options for how to respond.
- Give up on my reading for the entire year. This is a perfectionist approach that essentially says “If I can’t do it “right” then I don’t even want to do it at all.
- Give myself grace and say, “Oops. I goofed up.” then just jump to where I am supposed to be reading and not worry about all the days I missed. I’ll get them next year.
- Allocate the time and get caught up. Since this is a holiday weekend here in the states, I’ve had some extra time to be able to do that. It’s the path I’ve chosen to take. I’m in the thick of the readings that led to Give Us a King! – and I like this part of the Bible.
I’m almost caught up. I plan to allocate time this afternoon. I’ve read all the days I missed in June, now I just have a handful of the July readings to finish.
It isn’t the failure that defines us. It’s our response to failure (whether experienced or forecasted) that is most important.
Reading the Bible will change your life. It will give you insights into God, His plan for the world, what He wants for you, what it means to be saved…
There really is no substitute. And reading the Bible once isn’t enough. It’s not a checklist that get’s you spiritual points. It’s an ongoing “walk” that leads to godliness. It’s a way that you express your devotion to God.
Everything else you do with your Bible will be enhanced by reading it multiple times.
So if you started reading your Bible earlier this year, and got stuck fell down, missed a bunch of days…. whatever, let me encourage you to give yourself grace and “get back on the horse.” Your obedience and devotion is what matters, not the times you’ve failed.
If you have never thought about reading your Bible, then let me encourage you to start. Get on the horse. A few years ago I started in August. That’s when I was convicted that I needed to be investing in God’s word (and not riding on the coattails of “I did it once long ago”). The fact that it’s July now doesn’t matter. You can start and begin receiving the benefits.
If you’ve thought about it and are afraid that you won’t be able to do it and only see the prospect of failure in front of you, then stop and think about what you’re missing out on. It doesn’t matter if you don’t do it perfectly. If you miss a few days each week, you’re still getting benefits on the days that you do read. And over time, you’ll probably get better at it.
Here’s my offer to you. Make it easy on yourself. I’ve had tremendous success using a special Bible designed to read through the Bible. It breaks the whole Bible into 365 daily readings. All you have to do is find the date and read what is included.
https://www.dennis-stevenson.com/resources/oneyearbible/
I recommend the One Year Bible as a way to make reading your Bible absolutely as easy as possible. Really all that’s left is the reading part. And if you want extra insight, I recommend the One Year Chronological Bible (that’s the one I’m reading this year).
Whether you are starting for the first time, or picking up on a sputtering effort. This is the best way I’ve found to make God’s word part of your life every day.
Until next time…
Dennis
