When it comes to keeping our New Year’s resolutions, many of us lack the requisite resolve.
According to Charles Herrick, Chair of Psychiatry for Nuvance Health, while up to 50 percent of U.S. adults make New Year’s resolutions, less than 10 percent actually keep them for more than a few months. Another survey found that 80 percent of us give up on our resolutions by the second week of February. A 2019 online survey by Strava, a social network for people who exercise, meanwhile, designated January 19 as “Quitters Day,” when most people abandon their resolutions.
Herrick lists three reasons why most people give up: (1) the difficulty in breaking old habits; (2) our impatience if a desired outcome—such as losing wright—does not happen quickly; and (3) the goal of the resolution is not interesting or important to us.
That goes for our resolutions to read the Bible, too. Lots of us Christians say we love the Bible, but comparatively few of us actually crack open its pages or click open our Scripture apps. Lifeway found that only 32 percent of regular Protestant churchgoers—and 36 percent of evangelical Protestants—say they read the Bible every day. Is it any wonder that we are beset by biblical illiteracy in our churches?
Compounding these perennial problems, COVID-related isolation has actually made it less likely that we will open up the Word. The grinding social distancing related to the pandemic has cut many of us off from our faith communities, which provide surprisingly strong encouragement to stay in the Word.
According to the State of the Bible 2020 report, between early 2019 and 2020, the percentage of adults who say they use the Bible daily dropped from 14 percent to 9 percent. But as the pandemic took hold, by June, it had dropped to 8.5 percent.
In January 2020, the percentage of adults identified as “Bible engaged” by the American Bible Society stood at 27.8 percent. By June, after months of lockdowns, it had fallen to 22.6 percent. “This study supports the idea that the church plays a significant role in benefitting people’s wellbeing and Scripture engagement,” John Farquhar Plake of the ABS told Christianity Today. “To increase Scripture engagement, we must increase relational connections with one another through the church.”
According to the State of the Bible 2020 report, between early 2019 and 2020, the percentage of adults who say they use the Bible daily dropped from 14 percent to 9 percent. But as the pandemic took hold, by June, it had dropped to 8.5 percent.
Intellectually, we know what the Bible says about itself:
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12).
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Rom. 15:4).
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (Psa. 119:105).
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (James 1:21).
But simply knowing the truth is not enough. My former pastor Kent Hughes used to say, “We need to believe what we believe.” Do we really believe what we say about the Bible? If so, how do we put the resolve back into our well-intended resolutions?
As everyone knows, America is awash in an embarrassing sea of Bible options, including translations and paraphrases, study Bibles, audio Bibles, devotional guides, commentaries, video teaching series, books, and more. Our problem is not a lack of choices. That may be true in other parts of God’s world, but it is not true for us. Our problem—like the missionary back from the field who is suddenly immobilized by the endless choices at the local supermarket—actually might be that we have too many choices.
So as someone who also struggles to regularly and prayerfully read God’s Word, here is an idea that has helped me. I like goals that are simple, achievable, and scalable. Complex and unrealistic reading plans and self-study courses are out right now. I just don’t have the time or energy. My philosophy is that a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. Perhaps one day I will do better, but for now, I’ll take what I can get, trusting in God’s grace and empowerment. He knows I am but dust.
America is awash in an embarrassing sea of Bible options, including translations and paraphrases, study Bibles, audio Bibles, devotional guides, commentaries, video teaching series, books, and more. Our problem is not a lack of choices.
My current approach is to borrow a page from Martin Luther’s playbook. One day the great Reformer’s barber, Peter, asked him how to pray. Luther, ever the pastoral writer, responded by penning a booklet called “A Simple Way to Pray.” It describes Luther’s prayer as a four-stranded garland or braid. Luther would choose a passage of Scripture or a creed to pray over, inviting the Holy Spirit to speak through it:
“I take one part after another and free myself as much as possible from distractions in order to pray. I divide each commandment into four parts, thereby fashioning a garland of four strands. That is, I think of each commandment as, first, instruction, which is really what it is intended to be, and consider what the Lord God demands of me so earnestly. Second, I turn it into a thanksgiving; third, a confession; and fourth, a prayer.”
Over Advent, our family used the four-stranded garland with the birth narratives of Jesus, opening some great discussions. This simple approach works with small passages and large ones, so it is ideal for busy, tired, and stressed people like you and me. Try it. If it doesn’t work for you, feel free to try something else. But don’t lose your resolve. God’s Word is worth it—this year and every year.
Stan Guthrie is the author of God’s Story in 66 Verses. His latest book is Victorious: Corrie ten Boom and The Hiding Place
