2 Timothy 3:16 – All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (ESV)

To keep my brain ticking, I use a free language learning program. The app reports that I've been successful in completing the lessons for 730 days in a row. As a result of my competitive nature, maintaining a really long streak actually becomes high motivation to login every day. So, I am really focused to succeed, yet I am not truly the successful doer of 730 consecutive days of lessons.

One of the program's concessions is to make an allowance for missing a day by using what it calls a streak-freeze — a kind of cheat. When a day's input is missed, to avoid the streak being reset to zero, you can automatically use a streak-freeze, if you have saved them up. Initially, they are limited to only three in about three months: not many. I have needed several streak-freeze days to keep the streak going over the previous two years.

So, I ask: why is my desire to keep a streak going sometimes more pressing than my desire to read my Bible every day? Have I been sucked into the challenge of learning over and above hearing from God? As it is, I spend enough time in front of the computer. Surely, the Bible should come first and not be supplanted by a mere program.

For sixty years, through school, and finally, university religious studies training and teaching, I consider myself familiar with the Word of God. However, I have acquired the conceit of thinking I know what God is saying through my previous encounters with His Word and past revelation.

Sadly, if I am not praying, asking for and engaging with the Holy Spirit's illumination to hear from God today and to aid my reading of the Bible, my mind — if not yours — wanders off into the world, because of the absence of God's inspiring influence through the daily reading of His Word.

For me, prayer is just the start of the dialogue with God, where we first become still and wait, wanting to hear His voice, asking for the presence of the Holy Spirit. How else can we expect to hear from God when reading Scripture? The Bible is often God's unpretentious way of speaking truth to us for today! In truth, sometimes, by an act of grace, His Word leaps from the page — no prayers needed — but not every day!

Does it matter if we miss a day? Can we use a streak-freeze to get by until tomorrow without reading? Yes, but there are no cheats to hearing from God, only lessons to be learnt about missing God's voice for the day and prayers for grace later as He looks to our return.

Prayer: Lord, here I am before the throne of Your grace again. Please fan into flame those embers of longing for reading and hearing Your Word to feed my soul for today, for we need You. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

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About the author:

Rod Marshall <roderickhenrymarshall@gmail.com>
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England
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